Tag: History

Book Review: Stuck by Yoni Applebaum

Stuck

By Yoni Applebaum

Reviewed by Hank Bitten, NJCSS Executive Director

As a social studies teacher I taught the migration of Europeans to the New World, the Atlantic Slave Trade Migration, Oregon Trail, Trail of Tears, construction of canals, steamboats and railroads, land at $1.60 an acre, Underground Railroad, Manifest Destiny, Great Migration after the Civil War, Frederick Jackson Turner’s thesis on the frontier, immigration, analyzed The Warmth of Other Suns, Harlem Renaissance, interstate highway system, Federal Housing Authority, selected excerpts from Crabgrass Frontier, and the migration to the Sun Belt. However, Stuck presented me with a new perspective about the importance of mobility in America and its relationship to the American Dream! This is why I am encouraging every social studies teacher to read Stuck.

Yoni Applebaum clearly presents the economics, sociological, historical perspective to the demographics in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries in American history and the opportunities that became available for millions of young Americans. The wealthy Americans remained in Boston, New York, Monticello, Charleston, and Savannah as they had no reason to seek a better life. However, agricultural workers, manufacturing workers, civil servants, and immigrants moved to multiple locations to find better homes, more money, and new social connections. Immigrants moved west and contributed to farming, canals, roads, and railroads. New communities were built on democratic values and traditions and the importance of civics is equally important to the historical, sociological, and economic perspectives. 

“Some Americans have become so accustomed to the places with the greatest opportunities being effectively reserved for the rich that it somehow seems natural that they should be. In fact, it represents a recent and profound inversion. For centuries, Americans at the bottom of the economic ladder moved toward such places, not away from them, searching for a foothold on the first rung of that ladder, looking for a chance to climb. Entrepreneurs raced to erect housing to hold them.” (page 4)

“’When the mobility of population was always so great,” the historian Carl Becker observed, “the strange face, the odd speech, the curious custom of dress, and the unaccustomed religious faith ceased to be a matter of comment or concern.” A mobile population opened the possibilities of pluralism as diverse peoples learned to live alongside each other, The term ‘stranger,’ Becker wrote, in other lands synonymous with ‘enemy,’ instead became ‘a common form of friendly salutation.’  In a nation where people are forever arriving and departing, a newcomer can seem less a threat to the settled order than a welcome addition to a growing community: ‘Howdy, stranger.’ Mobility has long been the shaper of American character and the guarantor of its democracy.’” (page 9)

The industrialization of the United States following the Civil War placed us on a trajectory to become more urban and less rural. Frederick Jackson Turner in 1893 presented a thesis based on the 1890 U.S. Census that claimed the frontier of the United States was closed at the 100th meridian. Although his thesis would eventually be challenged, it revealed divisions of values and new ways of living.

Cities also required investments in public utilities, and in finding solutions to poverty, crime, and places for the homeless. The story of the 20th century is one of urban problems, flight to the suburbs, increasing home values as homes were purchased, destroyed, and rebuilt and sold or rented for higher prices. The story of the 21st century is one where housing has become unaffordable for a majority of Americans, who understand what it means to be ‘stuck’ with limited options or no options for the pursuit of happiness.

Stuck also provides an insightful historical context of the historical experiences of Chinese immigrants living in California and Jewish immigrants in New York City in the late 19th and early 20th century. The two chapters dedicated to the personal experiences of immigrants and immigrant families provided me with new information that directly applies to the teaching of immigration in a U.S. History class. The new information that I learned related to the racist decisions of local governments regarding zoning, housing, and the regulation of family-operated businesses. The exposure about immigration for students is at the national level in the news and most classroom lessons. The chapter on “Dirty Laundry” references Modesto, California in 1885.

“In 1884, more than a hundred men in ‘mostly ghostly attire’ wearing black masks and calling themselves the San Joaquin Valley Regulators, rampaged through Chinatown. They raided opium houses, knocked down one Chinese man who attempted to flee, and even assaulted a white police officer who tried to stop them. In June 1885, a washhouse and a store in Chinatown burned down, in an apparent arson attack. Despite the unrelenting assaults, Modesto’s Chinese residents held fast. And following the familiar pattern, they began to set up their laundries in residential neighborhoods….

Two weeks later, the city council obliged, passing its zoning ordinance.  The Chinese were not mentioned in the legislation.  Instead, it simply designated a district for laundries, one whose boundaries happened to be precisely the same as those of Chinatown.  The ghetto that Modesto had failed to impose with violence, it would now attempt to enforce with land-use law.’ (pp. 90-91)

It is important for students to understand the power of local governments and the importance of understanding local laws they may not hear on social media or local news networks. The story of Hang Kie is told as a story that students will find interesting and compelling for discussion and debate. He was arrested within five days of the implementation of Modesto’s new zoning law. His landlord wanted him to continue operating his business to collect the rent. He was arrested, fined $100 dollars (perhaps three months income) and sentenced to 20 days in jail. His case went to the California Supreme Court on the grounds that the Modesto law was unreasonable because it was not applied equally to all residents, and the right to use your own property providing it did not injure others or negatively harm the general population. The California Supreme Court upheld Hang Kie’s conviction as a reasonable exercise of police powers to safeguard the general population of Modesto from the threat of fire. (pp. 94-95). In the middle of the legal arguments, the men in Modesto could not get their white shirts for Sunday worship cleaned so they adopted colored shirts to hide the dirt.

The use of land-use laws spread to other California towns as the state’s population increased by more than two million between 1900 and 1920. In California, 20% were born in another country and 25% had one immigrant parent. The 1906 San Francisco earthquake displaced thousands of Chinese who relocated in communities across the bay.  A lesson for students is the context of the expansion of the powers of the executive branch of our federal government is the elasticity of police powers.

The eastern European Jews who immigrated to the Lower East Side of Manhattan presented situations for local government that had not previously been encountered in the United States. The Jewish population was transitory with perhaps 50% returning to their homeland as they accumulated enough cash to travel back to Europe. They crowded into small apartments and were willing to tolerate unsanitary conditions. They valued education and economic success and were passionate about living in America. (p.116)  The historical record of the experiences of Jewish immigrants is documented with the photographs of Jacob Riis, personal stories in the Library of Congress resource, Chronicling America, and the National Museum of Immigration (Ellis Island) and the Tenement Museum in New York City.

Source: International Center of Photography

The issues of immigration, affordable housing, and the segregation of the rich from the poor in 1900 offer interesting lessons for the students of this century, 125 years later. New York City faced a surging population that increased from 3.4 million in 1900 to 4.8 million in 1910. An increase of 67%. The density of population in lower Manhattan increased with the construction of six story apartment buildings on every available piece of vacant land. The area north of 42nd street and areas of Brooklyn saw an increase in single family homes and mansions. The top floor of the mansions were designed for offices. The Panic of 1907 left many of these offices vacant and they became occupied with immigrants in need of places to live.

Henry Sinclair House, Fifth Avenue and 79th Street, NYC (Ukraine Consulate)

There were three solutions to New York’s immigrant problem: exclusion of immigrants with literacy tests and quotas, the expansion of immigrant populations to accelerate economic growth through housing construction and employment opportunities, or regulation regarding labor, health, and zoning. (page 124) Congress created the Dillingham Commission in 1911, which offered a detailed report on the enormous contributions of immigrants but concluded that immigration restriction was in the interest of the country. (Page 125)

Report from the Dillingham Commission

An interesting discussion or debate for students studying the living conditions of immigrants is the argument that fire safety justified the police powers of the state to enforce laws regulating businesses, construction, and population density. In Modesto, California, fire regulations were applied to laundries in buildings and in New York City, fire regulations were applied to the height of buildings. While public safety is in the interest of the public it also justified the power of the state to regulate the free enterprise of individuals and influenced the segregation of neighborhoods by income and ethnicity. These arguments were made by the tenement reformers, although the proposed solutions of the reformers favored one economic group over others.

I included Henry George and the single property tax movement in my U.S. History lessons. My students understood this as a socialist reform to redistribute wealth from the millionaire class to the working class. Yoni Applebaum in Stuck offers this perspective:

“The Georgists argued that if the density of people per acre were to rise, it should be seen not as congestion but as efficiency-with tall buildings allowing families to live in desirable neighborhoods while providing them with ample space, and office skyscrapers doing the same for workers. And if people truly objected to this, well, Bassett‘s commission could impose height limits that would spread the most intensive development over a somewhat broader area. The Georgists were confident in the city’s future and in its capacity to provide opportunities to the next generation of residents. The solution to congestion, they argued, was construction.” (page 126)

The land tax of Henry George lost to the zoning plan of Edward Murray Bassett. The leaders of New York City would decide what could and could not be built on any piece of property. The solution to the influx of immigrants in New York was to limit affordable housing. In 1913, the Woolworth building was built at 233 Broadway, within walking distance of City Hall. It was 60 stories, included both residential and office spaces, and for 17 years it was the tallest building in the world at a height of 792 feet.

F.W. Woolworth Building in New York City

A unique and important perspective of the author, Yoni Applebaum, is the interdisciplinary connections relating to geography, economics, sociology, and civics. These are transparent in the chapter on “Tenementophobia.”

Regarding geography, students can easily follow the building of houses and neighborhoods along colonial post roads, rivers and canals, railroads, and highways. In the 19th century, houses were built near factories and ports enabling workers to walk to work. The Utopian Socialists built model communities where factories were located. With the arrival of the automobile in the 20th century, people with money moved uptown and later to suburbs to escape the sights of factories, apartments, and the noise of densely populated neighborhoods. Students will see the evolution of apartment houses near the business district, then two-family homes, and then single residence homes, perhaps with winding streets aligned with trees.

The economic perspective is very important and interesting. Many immigrants saved money with the hope of renting a larger space for their families and later a home with a backyard play area. These middle-class homes were available to families with incomes that could sustain the expenses of a downpayment, mortgage, taxes, insurance, and repairs. Many of these homes in cities across the United States were built by independent carpenters or homeowners using models in the Sears Catalog. Students can create a digital museum of these houses with images of wider streets with picturesque views as they follow the construction of homes from the central business district to the outer boundaries of the city. Low incomes kept people ‘stuck’ in their neighborhoods. One of the significant contributions of unions was their ability to get living wages for many workers allowing workers to move from crowded apartments to single or double family homes, Unfortunately, the cost of selling a home made movement to a new neighborhood difficult or impossible.

Sears Catalog, circa, 1910

The sociological perspective on the quality of life should prompt an engaging discussion with students leading to relevant applications today.

“Homeownership promoted personal investment in family, child-rearing, school, church, and community; it safeguarded ‘manhood and womanhood’; it protected the ‘civic and social valiues of the American home….” (pages 152-53).

The single-family home, the belief that a ‘home was a castle’ that living in tenements or public housing was harmful, is a critical issue for students to understand even though it likely is not one of the learning standards in the curriculum. Did the zoning laws that were put in place in the early 20th century support the American Dream or did they segregate our population by income, race, ethnicity, and access to education. Students need to search for answers regarding how poverty should be addressed and eradicated. Is the answer with income and property tax policies, the quality of education, affordable housing, higher incomes, or something else?  In their search for answers, students should investigate the quality of life regarding marriage, cancer, crime, addiction, mental health, infant mortality, attendance in houses of worship, and life expectancy rates. They also need to discuss how their neighborhood or community has changed in the past 25 years (since 2000) and what it might look like in 2050. They also need to consider the economic and sociological impact of vacant stores in strip malls, where affordable homes are being built, and the quality of life in older homes.

The information about how state and the U.S. Supreme Court viewed zoning laws was fascinating to me. The case study in Stuck references Euclid v. Amber Realty Company (1926). The decision supported the constitutionality of zoning laws at a time when state courts were rejecting them. The basis of this case was the claim that zoning parts of the land owned by Ambler depressed property values by as much as two-thirds. (page 149) Euclid is a community east of Cleveland, Ohio and one of its inner suburbs.

The areas marked U2, U3, and U6 were the areas owned by Ambler Realty. Note the areas across Euclid Avenue with the curved streets with single family residences.  If the areas of U2, U3, and U6 were zoned for industry, the view and noise for the residences across the street would see this as undesirable or as a nuisance. What and who determines property use? (1922)

Note the development of the land after the Supreme Court’s decision

Students discussing the implications of police power of the state to determine land use, the public interest regarding health, safety, and welfare.  Should the Court protect the public good by limiting the property rights of an individual or should the Court protect the sanctity of the family against unsightly encroachments of noise, traffic, and smoke? Another consideration is that in 1926, the U.S. Supreme justices lived in communities that were zoned with neighborhoods of single-family homes and perhaps large homes for families with wealth.

The chapter titled “Auto Emancipation” offers new insights into the ‘great migration’ that followed Reconstruction. The railroads and manufacturing of automobiles in Michigan provided opportunities for Black Americans that could not be realized because of segregation, low wages, violence, and unfair mortgages. For me, the perspective was a nice addition to my knowledge from reading The Warmth of Other Suns and Caste by Isabel Wilkerson.

The following two quotes might be used for student inquiry and discussion regarding the experiences of Black Americans and today’s immigrants.

“It was mobility-specifically, the defiant exercise of the freedom of movement-that ultimately brough down the slave system.  Human beings are difficult to hold in bondage, even if half a continent has been turned into a vast, open-air prison.  As long as some place of refuge where people can claim greater freedom and opportunity exists, no system of repression can wholly immobilize a population.” (page 161)

“Black residents earned more than they had in the South, but when housing costs ate up roughly half their gains, they found themselves with few options.  They couldn’t build up, and they couldn’t move out.  The policy choices made by Flint’s elite left them kettled in a handful of districts, paying high rents for aging homes. But as bad as things were, the federal government was about to make things worse.” (i.e. FHA mortgages) (page 177)

Teaching the domestic issues facing the United States is a challenge for most teachers. This unit includes the civil rights movement, women’s rights, education, space exploration, political challenges, inflation, environment, Great Society, U.S. Supreme Court decisions, and the changes with transportation and communication.  The post-World War II economic boom is often lost or marginalized in the teaching of this unit. In my classes, students read excerpts from John Kenneth Galbraith’s The Affluent Society, Michael Harrington’s The Other America, and Kenneth Jackson’s Crabgrass Frontier. The chapter titled “A Plague of Localists” offers the perspective of Frank Duncan, a working Black American living in Flint, Michigan.

I was not aware of the Edwards. v. California (1941) U.S. Supreme Court decision regarding the freedom of an indigent to move to another state. The Dust Bowl provided an incentive for unemployed and financially challenged U.S. citizens to move to other states. In 1936, the city of Los Angeles police turned indigent migrants away. The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the right of U.S. citizens to choose where they wanted to live but the conflicting arguments date back to 1823.

“In 1940, America was still a nation of renters-some 56 percent of households leased their dwellings…. The government could have met the demand for rentals by investing in public housing projects or providing cheap loans to real estate developers to build multifamily apartment buildings close to centers of employment. Instead, as the war came to an end, it chose to subsidize the purchase of free standing single-family homes.

Millions of Americans used FHA and VA loans to buy houses.  In 1944, America built 114,00 new homes; in 1950 it built 1.7 million.” (page 208)

The economics of housing relating to banks, credit unions, balloon loans, redlining, zero interest loans, mortgage insurance, and itemized tax deductions are essential topics for U.S. History students because they likely are living in communities with public housing, multifamily apartments, gated communities, cape cod houses built after World War 2, and houses in need of repairs.

The study of the housing crisis in America is also one students need to understand because the current scarcity of affordable housing directly affects them. College graduates with a starting salary of $125,000 are not able to save enough money for a downpayment in the community where they are currently living. In fact, they are also unlikely to afford renting at this income level either.

The solutions proposed in the last chapter, “Building a Way Out” include connections to history, civics, economics, and sociology. Some of these solutions include building more housing units to increase supply and reduce the costs of purchase and rent. Another solution is to have consistent rules for housing construction to reduce bureaucracy and encourage affordable housing near employment opportunities. Other solutions include subsidies for housing or increased wages for people below certain income thresholds, tolerance for different kinds of housing, and acceptance of a pluralistic community. The chapter includes case studies of Tokyo and New York City. The bias of the author is that America has a mobility crisis and mobility is what stimulates the American economy.

Teaching about the Indigenous Population of North America

Teaching about the Indigenous Population of North America

Lessons by Alexandria Neely, Nicholas Zimmerman, and April Francis-Taylor

This package includes four lesson ideas with activity sheets that can be adapted for middle or high school.

The first lesson examines factors that influenced the migration and settlement of indigenous peoples across North America and different theories explaining the path of migration. The second lesson examines governance of different indigenous nations and their interaction with neighboring peoples. It also introduces the impact of geography on history and culture. Lesson three discusses the arrival of Norse Vikings and their interaction with the Mi’kmaq. Lesson four engages students in a discussion of “discovery” by European explorers.

LESSON 1: What factors influenced the migration and settlement of indigenous peoples across North America?

This lesson will be the first among three lessons covering the migration of early humans to the Americas, and their subsequent interactions between neighboring tribes and early-Europeans. Students will explore different theories about early human migration, how early humans arrived in the Americas, where they settled, and the impact of geography on their settlement and lifestyle patterns. It was believed that 13,000 years ago, early-humans traveled to the America’s via the Bering Land Bridge, a now-submerged geographical landmark that connected Northeastern Asia with Northwestern Alaska. However, in recent decades, researchers have discovered the remains of early humans in the Americas dating to 16,000 years ago possibly before access via the Bering Land Bridge was available. After collaborative research on migration theories, students will write an argumentative essay illustrating their stance on which theory best explains the evidence. Students will locate difficult vocabulary contained within the research articles and define terms. Enduring issues and unifying themes include the Impact of Environment on Humans; Population Growth; Impact of Technology.

CONTENT VOCABULARY:

Homo sapiens: Modern humans

Bering Land Bridge: Land that connected Asia and Alaska that was submerged when glaciers melted and sea levels rose.

Clovis people: Possible first human s to migrate from Asia to the Americas.

Clovis-First Theory: Belief that no humans lived in the Americas prior to approximately 13,000 years ago.

Artifact: Items made by human beings that provide clues to the past.

Migration: Movement of people across boundaries to new areas.

ACTIVITIES:

Video: “America Unearthed, Proof of Ancient Voyagers to America” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvqANniyRzI ), from the 30:00 time stamp, to the 32:00 time stamp.

The First Native Americans

A. “The Kennewick Man”: On July 28, 1996, two men at Columbia Park in Kennewick, Washington, accidentally found part of a human skull on the bottom of the Columbia River, about ten feet from shore. Later searches revealed a nearly complete, ancient skeleton, now known as “The Ancient One” or “Kennewick Man.” Public interest, debate, and controversy began when independent archaeologist Dr. James Chatters, working on contract with the Benton County coroner, thought that the bones might not be Native American. He sent a piece of bone to a laboratory to be dated. The results indicated an age older than 9,000 years, making The Ancient One among the oldest and most complete skeletons found in North America. Subsequent research on the bones indicated that the skeleton is between 8,400–8,690 years old.

page1image63310896page1image63311104

Questions

1. Who is the Kennewick Man?

2. Why is the discovery of the Kennewick Man significant?

3. In your opinion, how did Kennewick Man arrive in North America?

B. On the timeline of history, the Clovis people appeared out of nowhere and disappeared in the blink of an eye. Archaeologists revealed that the Clovis had a pretty short existence: They first appeared in America around 9,200 B.C. and vanished 500 years later, around 8,700 B.C. So where did the Clovis come from and where did they go? Intense investigation into clues the Clovis left behind was launched as more artifacts were discovered. The Clovis-First Theory proposes that these people arrived in North America, from Siberia, where hunter-gatherer tribes lived.

(Source: Were the Clovis the first Americans? | HowStuffWorks)

Questions

1. According to the text, how long were the Clovis people present in North America?

2.  In your opinion, why did the Clovis people migrate to North America?

C. Native Americans — like all humans—are descendants of the first humans, who lived and evolved over millennia in Africa. Though it is unclear when some of the first humans left the continent, evidence suggests that their migration out of Africa occurred approximately 200,000 years ago, gradually populating parts of the middle east, Europe and Asia. The arrival of humans into North America is believed to have occurred between 45,000 to 25,000 ago, the same time other groups of humans migrated into new territories including Australia and East Asian Pacific islands. We can’t be sure of the exact reasons humans first migrated off of the African continent, but it is likely the reason was a depletion of resources like food in their regions and competition for those resources.

(Source: Homo sapiens & early human migration (article) | Khan Academy.)

page3image63057072page2image63393440


Questions

1. When does the author of this article claim humans began migrating to North America?

2. Why did humans migrate out of Africa and across the globe?  

3. Using the map, how do you think humans migrate to North America?

D. Beginning in the early 1800s, American scientists and naturalists began to speculate about the ways early humans arrived in the Americas. However, it wasn’t until the mid-1920s that scientists determined
that towards the end of the Ice Age, the Earth experienced a long period of frigid [below-freezing] conditions. Glaciers formed in the northern region of the Earth. As more of the Earth’s water got locked up in the glaciers, sea levels dropped. In some areas it dropped up to 300 feet. The land beneath the Bering Strait, a waterway separating Asia and North America was exposed and a flat grassy treeless plain emerged. This exposed land is known as the Bering Land Bridge.


Questions

1. What impact do you think the glaciers had on early human migrations?

2. In your opinion, do you think that the Bering Land Bridge was the only way early humans could travel to the Americas?

E. Student teams will examine two other proposed explanations for human migration into North America.

The Pacific Coast Migration Model is a theory concerning the original colonization of the Americas that proposes that people entering the continents followed the Pacific coastline, hunter-gatherer-fishers traveling in boats or along the shoreline and subsisting primarily on marine resources.

https://www.thoughtco.com/pacific-coast-migration-model-prehistoric-highway-172063

The Solutrean hypothesis suggests that Neolithic fishermen and hunters from Northern Europe sailed the Atlantic in tiny boats made of animal skins 18,000 years ago and colonized the eastern United States.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/1999/nov/28/archaeology.uknews

Exit Ticket: What factors enabled early humans to migrate and settle in regions across North America?

LESSON 2. What types of interactions did Native Americans have with neighboring communities?
Indigenous tribes in America formed complex, successful societies like the Iroquois Confederacy, and created governing structures and agreements such as the Great Law of Peace. Depending on their location, different indigenous tribes had vastly different power structures, houses, foods, and lifestyles. Students will determine central ideas; provide an accurate summary of the purpose and definition of the Great Law of Peace and the Iroquois Confederacy. Enduring issues and unifying themesincludeImpact of Environment on Humans and Power.

CONTENT VOCABULARY:

Sedentary: the practice of living in one place for a long time.

Nomadic: the movement of a person or people from one place in order to settle in another.

Iroquois Confederacy: Confederation of six tribes across upper New York that played a major role in the struggle between the French and British for control over North America.

COMPELLING QUESTIONS:

  • Why do you think is it important to learn about different tribes from all over what is now the United States?
  • Why do you think the Founding Fathers only adopted some aspects of the Great Law of Peace into their writings? Which parts did they leave out? Why do you think they did?
  • How does geography currently affect the way we live? How do you think it could affect us in the future?
  • Map of Indigenous people in the Territorial United States

Questions

  1. Which groups on the map have you heard of before? What do you know about them?
  2. Which groups are closest to where you live?
  3. How could their location influence their way of life? Give examples.
  4. How do you think these groups of people could have interacted with each other?
  • Iroquois Confederacy

a. “The Peacemaker story of Iroquois tradition credits the formation of the confederacy, between 1570 and 1600, to Dekanawidah (the Peacemaker), born a Huron, who is said to have persuaded Hiawatha, an Onondaga living among Mohawks, to advance “peace, civil authority, righteousness, and the great law” as sanctions for confederation. Cemented mainly by their desire to stand together against invasion, the tribes united in a common council composed of clan and village chiefs; each tribe had one vote, and unanimity was required for decisions. Under the Great Law of Peace (Gayanesshagowa), the joint jurisdiction of 50 peace chiefs, known as sachems, or hodiyahnehsonh, embraced all civil affairs at the intertribal level.”

b. “The Iroquois Confederacy established that each nation should handle their own affairs. The Great Law of Peace is a unique representational form of government, with the people in the clans having say in what information is passed upward.” (Source: Britannica)

Questions

  1. What is the Iroquois Confederacy?
  2. What would the benefits of a confederacy be?
  3. What is the primary structure of the Great Law of Peace?
  4. What historical documents remind you of the Great Law of Peace? What documents do you think could have been influenced by the Great Law of Peace?

C. Great Law of Peace

The Great Law of Peace are “teachings [that] emphasized the power of Reason, not force, to assure the three principles of the Great Law: Righteousness, Justice, and Health.” It also includes “instructions on how to treat others, directs them on how to maintain a democratic society, and expresses how Reason must prevail in order to preserve peace.” (Source: Haudenosaunee Guide for Educators)

Selected components:

     16. If the conditions which arise at any future time call for an addition to or change of this law, the case shall be carefully considered and if a new beam [law] seems necessary or beneficial, the proposed change shall be voted upon and if adopted it shall be called, “Added to the Rafter.”

24. The chiefs of the League of Five Nations shall be mentors of the people for all time. The thickness of their skins shall be seven spans, which is to say that they shall be proof against anger, offensive action and criticism. Their hearts shall be full of peace and good will and their minds filled with a yearning for the welfare of the people of the league. With endless patience, they shall carry out their duty. Their firmness shall be tempered with a tenderness for their people.

92. If a nation, part of a nation, or more than one nation within the Five Nations should in any way endeavor [try] to destroy the Great Peace by neglect or violating its laws and resolve to dissolve the Confederacy such a nation or such nations shall be deemed guilty of treason and called enemies of the Confederacy and the Great Peace.

93. Whenever a specially important matter or a great emergency is presented before the Confederate Council and the nature of the matter affects the entire body of Five Nations threatening their utter [complete] ruin, then the Lords of the Confederacy must submit the matter to the decision of their people and the decision of the people shall affect the decision of the Confederate Council. This decision shall be a confirmation of the voice of the people.

94. The men of every clan of the Five Nations shall have a Council Fire ever burning in readiness for a council of the clan. When it seems necessary for a council to be held to discuss the welfare of the clans, then the men may gather the fire. This council shall have the same rights as the council of the women.

95. The women of every clan of the Five Nations shall have a Council Fire ever burning in readiness for a council of the clan. When in their opinion it seems necessary for the interest of the people they shall hold a council and their decision and recommendation shall be introduced before the Council of Lords by the War Chief for its consideration. (Source)

Questions

  1. What do these sections tell you about the values of the Iroquois Confederacy?
  2. How does the Great Law of Peace differentiate from more modern United States’ government documents?
  3. What does the Great Law of Peace have in common with the ideals of more modern government?

D. Group Activity: Each group will be working on a separate area of what is now America. The groups are Plains, Northeast, Southwest, and Eastern Woodlands. The groups will look at/research images and readings and answer the sheets that go along with them. They will then participate in a “jigsaw” and fill out the rest of their charts using information from other groups representatives. On each sheet there will be a section at the top where they will write the definitions of nomadic and sedentary, this will be provided by the teacher (see Appendix A).

Plains Indians Information Sheet

“Many people think of the Plains Indians as people who traveled from place to place to find food and basic supplies. Only some of the tribes in this area lived that way. There were more than 30 different tribes who lived in the Great Plains. Like the Europeans who came to America from different countries, these tribes all had their own language, religious beliefs, customs and ways of life.”

(Source)

“The Plains Indians who did travel constantly to find food hunted large animals such as bison (buffalo), deer and elk. They also gathered wild fruits, vegetables and grains on the prairie. They lived in tipis, and used horses for hunting, fighting and carrying their goods when they moved. Other tribes were farmers, who lived in one place and raised crops. They usually lived in river valleys where the soil was good.”
(Source)

“Most Indigenous societies of the Great Plains practiced some form of hereditary chieftainship and recognized a head chief. In theory, the head chief presided over a council composed of war chiefs, headmen, warriors, and holy men. In practice, however, charismatic, self-made war-party

leaders often exercised the most significant authority, especially in times of crisis.” (Source)

Northeast Indians Information Sheet

The most elaborate and powerful political organization in the Northeast was that of the Iroquois Confederacy. A loose coalition of tribes, it originally comprised the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca. Later the Tuscarora joined as well. Indigenous traditions hold that the league was formed as a result of the efforts of the leaders Dekanawida and Hiawatha, probably during the 15th or the 16th century.”

(Source)

 “The Northeast culture area comprises a mosaic of temperate forests, meadows, wetlands, and waterways. The traditional diet consisted of a wide variety of cultivated, hunted, and gathered foods, including corn (maize), beans, squash, deer, fish, waterbirds, leaves, seeds, tubers, berries, roots, nuts, and maple syrup.”  (Source)

“Northeastern cultures used two approaches to social organization. One was based on linguistic and cultural affiliation and comprised tribes made up of bands (for predominantly mobile groups) or villages (for more sedentary peoples). The other was based on kinship and included nuclear families, clans, and groups of clans called moieties or phratries.” (Source)

Southwest Indians Information Sheet

“Most peoples of the Southwest engaged in both farming and hunting and gathering; the degree to which a given culture relied upon domesticated or wild foods was primarily a matter of the group’s proximity to water. A number of domesticated resources were more or less ubiquitous throughout the culture area, including corn (maize), beans, squash, cotton, turkeys, and dogs. During the period of Spanish colonization, horses, burros, and sheep were added to the agricultural repertoire, as were new varieties of beans, plus wheat, melons, apricots, [and] peaches.” (Source)

“For those groups that raised crops, the male line was somewhat privileged as fields were commonly passed from father to son. Most couples chose to reside near the husband’s family (patrilocality), and clan membership was patrilineal. In general women were responsible for most domestic tasks, such as food preparation and child-rearing, while male tasks included the clearing of fields and hunting.” (Source)

“Among the Navajo the preferred house form was the hogan, a circular lodge made of logs or stone and covered with a roof of earth; some hogans also had earth-berm walls. Among the Apache, the wickiup and tepee were used.” (Source)

Upland settlements “included dome-shaped houses with walls and roofs of wattle-and-daub or thatch. The groups that relied on ephemeral streams divided their time between summer settlements near their crops and dry-season camps at higher elevations where fresh water and game were more readily available. Summer residences were usually dome-shaped and built of thatch, while lean-tos and windbreaks served as shelter during the rest of the year.” (Source)

Southern Woodlands “Indians” Information Sheet

“The importance of corn in the Southeast cannot be overemphasized. It provided a high yield of nutritious food with a minimal expenditure of labour; further, corn, beans, and squash were easily dried and stored for later consumption. This reliable food base freed people for lengthy hunting, trading, and war expeditions. It also enabled a complex civil-religious hierarchy in which political, priestly, and sometimes hereditary offices and privileges coincided.” (Source)

“Most of the region teemed with wild game: deer, black bears, a forest-dwelling subspecies of bison, elks, beavers, squirrels, rabbits, otters, and raccoons. In Florida, turtles and alligators played an important part in subsistence. Wild turkeys were the principal fowl taken, but partridges, quail, and seasonal flights of pigeons, ducks, and geese also contributed to the diet. The feathers of eagles, hawks, swans, and cranes were highly valued for ornamentation, and in some tribes a special status was reserved for an eagle hunter.” (Source)

“In general, settlements were semi-permanent and located near rich alluvial soil or, in the lower Mississippi region, near natural levees. Such land was easily tilled, possessed adequate drainage, and enjoyed renewable productivity.” (Source)

“In much of the region, people built circular, conical-roofed winter “hot houses” that were sealed tight except for an entryway and smoke hole. Summer dwellings tended to be rectangular, gabled, thatch-roofed structures made from a framework of upright poles.” (Source)

LESSON 3. How did Native Americans, like the Mi’kmaq, interact with foreign societies, like the Norse?

The Norse arrived North America, but their settlements disappeared. Evidence suggests that Norse Viking, Leif Eriksson, traveled to North America in 1000 A.D, roughly 500 years before other European explorers.  Students investigate how, why, and where the Norse settled in North America. Students interpret the interactions between the Norse and the Mi’kmaq. It is believed that the Norse voyage to the new continent was the result of climatic fluctuations that forced settlers to seek new lands in an effort to survive and prosper. Upon their arrival to Newfoundland, evidence from the Greenlander Saga suggests that Norse Vikings encountered the Native American tribe, The Mi’kmaq, periodically engaging in limited trade with them, before the two groups engaged in conflict leading some researchers to speculate this was a cause of their disappearance. Students will examine how the physical environment and natural resources of North America influenced the development of the first human settlements and the culture of Native Americans as well as impacted on early European settlements. Students will research and write a 250-word argumentative short-essay, in which they introduce factors they believe influenced the disappearance of the Norse Vikings. Enduring issues and unifying themes include Impact of the Environment, Trade, Technology, and Conflict on human societies.

CONTENT VOCABULARY:

  • Norse– Settlers, traders, farmers, and seafarers who originated in Scandinavia.
  • Viking – Norse warriors and seafarers.
  • Vinland– An area of coastal North America explored by Vikings.
  • L’Anse aux Meadows – Remains of an 11th-century Viking settlement in Newfoundland
  • Mi’kmaq- Indigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands, native to the areas of Canada’s Atlantic Provinces.
  • The Viking Compass

Vikings did not have much material to work with other than wood and animal hair, to make it across the oceans, but they apparently didn’t require much more than that to get to where they were going and make it back again. In 1948 a (partial) wooden artifact was found in Greenland (called the Uunartoq disk), which was assumed to be some form of compass. Only representing a portion of a wheel or ‘disk,’ the partial device had notches carved around the perimeter and scratch marks at a few distinct intervals across the face. (Source)

  • Questions:
  • According to the text, what was needed, in order to use the “Viking Compass”?
  • Why is a compass important when traveling long distances across the ocean?
  • How might the discovery of this artifact change how we understand European Exploration of the Americas?
  • Evidence that the Norse reached North America

According to the “Saga of the Greenlanders”, Vikings became the first European to sight mainland North America when a Viking merchant, headed for Greenland, was blown westward off course about 985. Further, about 1000, Leif Eriksson, a notorious viking leader, is reported to have led an expedition in search of the land sighted by the viking merchant, and found an icy barren land he called Helluland (“Land of Flat Rocks”) before eventually traveling south and finding Vinland (“Land of Wine”).The narratives of exploration of a place that sounded like Maine, Rhode Island, or Atlantic Canada were thought to be just stories, until 1960, when Helge Ingstad, a Norwegian explorer, and archaeologist Anne Stine Ingstad, were led by a local man to a site on the northern tip of Newfoundland island. At L’Anse aux Meadows, they discovered the remains of a Viking encampment that they were able to date to the year 1000 — That’s almost 500 years before the Europeans landed in the Americas! (Source)  

Questions

  1. Who led the Viking expedition to North America?
  2. How long before Columbus, did the Vikings arrive in North America?
  3. Do you think that it is fair to say that the Vikings discovered North America? Explain.

C. The Norse meet the Mi’kmaq

The Mi’kmaq are among the original inhabitants of the Atlantic region in Canada, and inhabited the coastal areas of Gaspé and the Maritime Provinces east of the Saint John River. This traditional territory is known as Mi’gma’gi (Mi’kma’ki) and is made up of seven districts. Mi’kmaq people have occupied their traditional territory, Mi’gma’gi, centuries before the arrival of the Vikings. Today, the remaining members of the Mi’kmaq community continue to occupy this area, as well as settlements in Newfoundland and New England, especially Boston. While it is not entirely clear, as to how the Mi’kmaq and the Vikings interacted, historical accounts of their interactions have suggested that the Mi’kmaq not only engaged in trade with the Vikings, but they also found themselves engaged in conflict with one another as well.

Going further, researchers have since discovered that the Mi’kmaq had developed oral histories that speak of a Mi’kmaq woman’s ancient premonition [dream] that people would arrive in Mi’gma’gi on floating islands, and a legendary spirit who traveled across the ocean to find “blue-eyed people.” Since the story’s discovery, many individuals have regarded its existence as a foretelling of the arrival of Europeans.

Questions:

  1. What areas of the present-day United States and Canada did the Mi’kmaq people inhabit?
  2. How might the “ancient premonition” [ancient dream] of “blue-eyed people” arriving in North America help us understand how Native Americans viewed and interacted with European explorers?

D. Unknown American Holiday: Leif Erikson Day
Leif Erikson was likely born in Iceland around 970 or 980 AD, and was the son of infamous Norse chieftain, Erik the Red. Leif, much like his father, was a true Viking from the start, and began sailing with his crew across present-day western Europe and parts of Scandinavia. Nevertheless, the story begins with Leif traveling to present-day Greenland. It was on this journey in approximately 999 AD, that Leif Erikson and his crew would be blown off-course, to a location they named “Vinland,” meaning “Land of
Wine.” While at first it would appear that Erikson found something other than North America, the descriptions of the surrounding area and its inhabitants have led researchers to believe that Erikson is writing about his arrival in North America. In 2024, President Joseph Biden declared October 9th Leif Erikson Day. (Source)

Questions:

  1. When did Leif Erikson arrive in North America?
  2. In your opinion, why does Leif Erikson Day have less recognition than Columbus Day?

E. Group Activity—Investigate the Disappearance the Newfoundland Norse Settlement

Instructions: In groups of three or four, students will be tasked with investigating the possible reasons for the Norse Vikings’ mysterious disappearance from their North American settlement.

Station #1: Climate Change

There was a time centuries ago that settlements in cold northern lands grew little by little with the arrival of new inhabitants. Up to the 15th Century, the territories we now know as Greenland and Newfoundland in North America, reached population sizes of around 2,000. From then on, these lands began to depopulate. Early research said the exodus was due to many problems, but temperature change has often been cited as an explanation for the end of the Vikings. According to this theory, the Nordics arrived in the North during a period that was more or less warm, where they could survive until temperatures fell during a period known as, the Little Ice Age.    A ship on cracked ground with a tree and a yellow sun Description automatically generated

     Now, new research by the College of Natural Sciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst concludes that summers were increasingly warm and dry in Greenland and Newfoundland during the time the Nordic settlements were abandoned. Thus, the trigger for the disappearance of the Vikings could have been drought. Source:Climate history: Why did the Vikings disappear from northern lands?]. 

Questions

1. What other regions did the Vikings visit?

2. How did climate impact the survival of the Vikings in North America?

3. What climate event occurred that made it more difficult for Vikings to live in North America?

Station #2: Conflict with the Native Americans

[Source:When Vikings Clashed with Native North Americans  ]. 

The settlement at L”Anse aux Meadows was only in use for roughly twenty years or so. It’s estimated that the Vinland settlements lasted the same amount of time.While scholars do not know why the Vikings abandoned the settlements so quickly, there are several theories. Hostile relations with the natives surely did not help matters. Though their iron tools aided them in battle, the natives dramatically outnumbered the Vikings who only numbered at most in the low hundreds. In an early encounter, one of the viking chieftains that lead the group of norse settlers in Newfoundland, Leif Eiriksson, is recorded to have been “struck by an arrow”. It would later be determined through these records —The Vinland Sagas—that his injuries would prove fatal. While it is not clear what tribes attacked the Vikings during their stay, evidence suggests that it was likely a number of Inuit tribes, including the Mi’kmaq. That being said, due to the increased amount of conflict between the Vikings and Native tribes, the Vikings dubbed their enemies Skraelings, which historians believe translates as either “barbarian” or “foreigner” in the old Norse tongue. It could have also meant “weak” or “sickly” or even “false friend”.

Questions

  1. According to the document, how long were the Vikings in North America?
  2. How did conflict with the Native Americans impact the Vikings living in North America?
  • Why do you think the Vikings were attacked by Native Americans?

Station #3: Economics

[Source: Why didn’t the Vikings colonize North America? | Live Science : ]. 

When the Vikings explored south of Newfoundland, in an area they named “Vínland” (which translates as “Wine Land”), they were more interested in finding natural resources they could exploit. However, Kevin P. Smith, a research associate at the Smithsonian Institute who specializes in the Vikings, had a somewhat different opinion. He said that Norse texts indicate that some Vikings believed it offered “opportunities for ‘second sons’ of the chieftain who had established the Greenland colony to carve out their own areas where they could be leaders/chiefs rather than second sons.

Be that as it may, there is a leading theory that presumes the Vikings had abandoned the settlement largely due to its decline in economic importance. For instance, Medieval Europe had coveted [desired] walrus ivory leading to the market’s expansion across the North Atlantic. As such, and by the time the Vikings had sailed to and settled in North America, a series of large walrus colonies had already been established in Northern Greenland, which researchers speculate, ultimately diminished the economic significance of the North American settlement. Going further, many researchers have also speculated that the abandonment of the settlement was also influenced by the nature of walrus tusk hunting; It was dangerous, time consuming, and expensive.

Questions

  1. Using the text, define the term “Vinland.”
  2. Why was the settlement in North America important for the Vikings?
  • What economic factors influenced the Vikings to abandon their settlement in North America? Explain.

Station #4: Distance

[Source: The Norse in the North Atlantic  ].

Another important question is why the Norse failed to settle permanently in North America. How was it that they could survive in Greenland for 500 years, but could not establish themselves in Vinland, with its richer resources and better climate? Vinland was a remote place, and voyaging there was risky and uncertain, as we know from the sagas. In the early 11th century, the Greenland settlements were still young and did not have the population nor the wealth to support a new colony in North America. Additionally, there was also little incentive, in that the economy which developed in Greenland did not need expansion to America. There might have been some incentive later in the history of the Greenland settlements, but by that time — the13th and 14th centuries — the inhabitants were preoccupied with their own survival and would not have had the resources or the interest to create a new colony. Greenland was a fragile colony, incapable of sustaining itself as climatic, economic, and political conditions deteriorated. According to Thomas McGovern, a leading authority on Norse expansion to North America, “Greenland simply did not produce enough people or riches to act as a successful base for sustained colonization attempts, and Norse Greenlanders may have seen little immediate benefit in expanding in Vinland.”

Questions

  1. How did the Norse colony at Greenland impact the settlement in North America?
  2. Why did the Norse colony in Greenland begin to collapse?
  • What happened during the 13th and 14th centuries that prevented Vikings from settling in North America?

LESSON 4. How did interactions among Native Americans and outsiders challenge our understanding of early exploration and the “discovery” of America?  It is still debated how and when early humans arrived in North America. Eventually a number of Native American tribes existed across the modern-day United States and the Americas. The laws and alliances, like the Iroquois Confederacy and the Great Law of Peace, made by Native Americans between themselves and outsiders may have contributed to the founding documents of the United States. This lesson is a Socratic Seminar. Students will have collaborative discussions, work civilly and democratically to evaluate diverse perspectives about how early humans migrated to the Americas, the significance of the Great Law of Peace on American law, and the dangers of leaving groups of people out when learning about history. Enduring Issues will be discussed in this lesson include Power and the Impact of Immigration.

VOCABULARY REVIEW MATCHING ACTIVITY

The Bering Land Bridge Clovis First Theory
Solutrean Hypothesis
Trans-Pacific Migration Theory The Great Law of Peace
Artifact
Migration
Clovis People
Nomadic
Sedentary
Confederacy
Iroquois Confederacy
Saga of the Greenlanders
Mi’kmaq
Plains tribes
Northeastern tribes
Southwestern tribes
Southern Woodlands tribes		A. An ancient culture of North America that lived between 10,000 and 9,000 BCE B. The first humans to reach the Americas migrated from Asia by traveling across the Pacific Ocean C. Nomadic people who resided largely in the western plains D. Source on Norse colonization of North America E. Group of people joined together for a common purpose
F. The practice of living in one place for a long time
G. People who move from one place in order to settle in another
H. Indigenous people of what is now Canada and Nova Scotia
I. Art, tools, and clothing made by people of any time and place
J. Sedentary people of Alaska and Northwestern California K. Sedentary people who resided largely near the Atlantic Ocean
L. Oral constitution of the Iroquois Confederacy
M. Communities who move from one place to another
N. Confederation governed by the Great Law of Peace O. Land bridge connecting Asia to North America
P. Hunters considered the first people to arrive in the Americas
Q. Belief that early Europeans arrived in the Americas R. People who resided in present day New Mexico and Arizona

COMPELLING QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION:

  1. Who should be called the “first Americans?” Should anyone?
  2. What could be the consequences of designating one group of people as the “first” be?
  3. Why would it be important to recognize all of the different groups you learned about? What could happen if we do not mention them?
  4. What is the danger of forgetting or leaving out groups of people from history? Is there any?
  5. Which theory of migration do you think is most plausible?
  6. Why do people migrate? Have the motives for migration changed from then to now? How so?
  7. How do we make welcoming communities for those who migrate?
  8. How has your understanding of Indigenous American history and the “discovery” of America changed?
  9. How did interactions among Native Americans and outsiders challenge our understanding of early exploration and the “discovery” of America?

Appendix A: Sample Worksheet

 Nomadic or SedentaryHousingLeadership StructureLocation (Modern Country and State)TribesFood Sources
Plains      
Northwest      
Southwest      
Eastern Woodlands      

African American & Labor History Timeline

African American & Labor History Timeline

Prepared by the Queens, New York Public Library and the University of Minnesota, Carlson School of Management

Every facet of the United States has been affected by the labor and inventions of African Americans. Discover some of the men and women who created the inventions that improved daily life, fought for fair wages, safety, equal rights, and justice for Black workers. These are just some of the important milestones in the history of Black Labor in America. To learn more, visit your local library during Black History Month—and beyond!

1500s-1865: Transatlantic Slave Trade through the American Civil War

1500s: Transatlantic Slave Trade

The largest oceanic forced migration in history, the Transatlantic Slave Trade began in the late 1500s when over 12.5 million African men, women and children were removed from the continent and transported to the Americas, Brazil and the Caribbean to work on plantations and live their lives in servitude. As a result, many slave rebellions erupted throughout the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, constituting some of the first organizing and labor-related actions in the Americas.

1739: Traditional African drumming is banned

Enslaved Africans were prohibited from playing traditional drums, as European enslavers feared that drumming could facilitate communication across fields, uplift weary spirits, comment on oppressive masters, and incite rebellions. In response, Black people developed alternative forms of musical expression, such as hand clapping and percussive stomping, which became the foundation of work songs and spirituals. These musical forms later evolved into genres like the blues and jazz and are integral to today’s African American music.

c.1763-c.1826: Artist Joshua Johnson

Recognized as one of the earliest professional African American artists, Johnson was born into slavery near Baltimore around 1763 and gained his freedom in 1782. He described himself as a “self-taught genius” and painted portraits of families, children, and prominent residents of Maryland.

1786: The Tignon Law

This Louisiana law was enacted to regulate the appearance of free women of color to “establish public order and proper standards of morality,” and subjection to undesirability. Women were prohibited from going outdoors without wrapping their natural hair with a Tignon cloth. As a symbol of rebellion, Black women reappropriated Tignon production into a major fashion statement, form of self-expression and business by embellishing the headscarves with decorative fabrics, feathers and jewels.

1859: Author Harriet E. Wilson

Our Nig; or Sketches from the Life of a Free Black is considered the first novel by an African American woman. It gave insight into the supposed “Free North,” challenging the idea that the North was a safe have providing peace and equality for African Americans

1865: 13th Amendment Outlaws Slavery

The official end to slavery was perhaps the greatest labor victory in U.S. history. Yet the struggle for equal rights and fair wages was far from over; the same year that Congress adopted the 13th Amendment, the white supremacist terrorist organization and hate group, the Ku Klux Klan, was formed.

1865-1900: Reconstruction and the Gilded Age

1865-1877: Reconstruction

In the decade following the Civil War, Congress established the Freedmen’s Bureau to help African Americans with food, housing, education, political rights and negotiating labor agreements. This period is thought to be one of expanding freedom for the formerly enslaved but in the South they were subjected to violence and new forms of mistreatment.

1872: Frederick Douglass

Douglass was elected president of the “Colored” National Labor Union, and his The New National Era became the union’s official newspaper. Douglass was one of America’s most important champions of equality and the right to organize a union.

1880s: Knights of Labor

The St. Paul Minnesota Trades & Labor Assembly was founded with the assistance of the Knights of Labor Assembly in1883. The Knights of Labor were known for their inclusiveness for accepting women and African American members, however they also supported the Chinese Exclusion Act.

1883: Lucy Parsons (c. 1851 – 1942)

Lucy Parsons and her husband, Albert Parsons, a former Confederate soldier turned anarchist, founded the International Working People’s Association. In 1886, they led the city’s first May Day parade, which called for an eight-hour workday.

1900s-1950s

1901: Up from Slavery

Booker T. Washington, a major voice for economic self-reliance and racial uplift, publishes his autobiography discussing his life and thoughts on race relations.

1905-1960: The Great Migration

In the first half of the 20th century, a mass migration of more than six million Black people took place from the South to the North. Many left to escape overt Southern racism, only to encounter racial tensions in the North as whites viewed them as a threat to their jobs. The Migration Series is a group of paintings by African American painter Jacob Lawrence (1917-2000) which depicts the migration of African Americans to the Northern U.S. from the South. It was completed in 1941 and was conceived as a single work rather than individual paintings. Lawrence wrote captions for each of the sixty paintings. Viewed in its entirety, the series creates a narrative in images and words that tells the story of the Great Migration.

1909: National Training School for Women and Girls

Nannie Helen Burroughs (1879-1961) was a suffragist, educator and organizer, as well as a mentor to the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., who worked to integrate labor reform into the movement for voting rights. Burroughs established the National Training School for Women and Girls in 1909 to combat labor exploitation through education, helping to improve working conditions and expand career pathways for Black women. She also launched the National Association of Wage Earners in 1921, a labor union for Black domestic workers.

1910s-1930s: The Harlem Renaissance

A period of flourishing of African American art, literature, and performance art saw the rise of iconic figures like author Langston Hughes, trumpeter Louis Armstrong, pianist Duke Ellington, and vocalists Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday. Langston Hughes was a central figure in the Harlem Renaissance. A major poet, Hughes also wrote novels, short stories, essays, and plays.

1910: The Foster Photoplay Company

William D. Foster founds the first film production company established by an African American. It features all African American casts. The Railroad Porter (circa 1913) was the first film produced and directed by an African American.

1917: East St. Louis Race Riot

During World War I, thousands of Blacks moved to the St. Louis area to work in factories fueling the war effort. When the largely white workforce at the Aluminum Ore Company went on strike, hundreds of Blacks were hired as strikebreakers. Tensions erupted, and thousands of whites, many of them union members, attacked African Americans and set fire to their homes. Between 100 and 200 Blacks are estimated to have been killed and were 6,000 left homeless.

1919: Red Summer

Racial tensions were inflamed during the September 1919 Steel Strike, when workers shut down half of the nation’s steel production in an effort to form a union. Bosses replaced them with some 40,000 African American and Mexican American strikebreakers, an action made possible by AFL unions that excluded people of color from union jobs and membership.

1921: Tulsa Race Massacre (May 31-June 1, 1921)

The Tulsa Race Massacre was a 1921 attack on Tulsa’s Greenwood District, an affluent African American community whose thriving business and residential areas were known as “Black Wall Street.” In response to a May 31 newspaper report of alleged black-on-white crime, white rioters looted and burned Greenwood in the early hours of June 1. The governor of Oklahoma declared martial law, and National Guard troops arrived and detained all Black Tulsans not already interned. About 6,000 Black people were imprisoned, some for as long as eight days. In the end, 35 city blocks lay in ruins, more than 800 people were injured, and as many as 300 people may have died. The Massacre was largely omitted from local, state, and national histories until the Tulsa Race Massacre Commission convened in 1997 to investigate the event. Today, memorials, historical exhibits, and documentaries are some of the ways that the Massacre has been acknowledged and the history of “Black Wall Street” kept alive.

1925: Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters

 The first labor organization led by African Americans to receive a charter from the American Federation of Labor. African American porters performed essential passenger services on the railroads’ Pullman sleeper cars and the union played a key role in promoting their rights. In the summer of 1925, A. Philip Randolph (1889-1979) met with porters from the Chicago-based Pullman Palace Car Company. The mostly Black Pullman workforce were paid lower wages than white railway workers and faced harsh conditions and long working hours. Randolph worked with these workers to form and organize the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. When the union was finally recognized in 1935, it became the first predominantly Black labor union in the nation. As the union’s founder and first president, A. Philip Randolph became a leader in the Civil Rights Movement.

1930s: The Great Depression

African Americans primarily worked as sharecroppers on white-owned land, and tenant farmers in the south. They continued migrating to the north in search of better opportunities, but due to racism, they often found work as domestics, in factories, and as seasonal traveling migrant farmers. New Deal programs provided some relief, but they still faced unequal access to programs like the Works Progress Administration due to racial segregation and violence.

1934: Dora Lee Jones (1890-1972)

Jones helped found the Domestic Workers Union (DWU) in Harlem in 1934 in defiance of New York City’s “slave markets,” as they were known. With few options during the Depression, Black women would gather daily in the morning at certain locations and wait for white middle-class women to hire them, typically for low wages. The DWU eventually affiliated with the predecessor to today’s Service Employees International Union.

1940s: Women Fill Wartime jobs

During World War II, African American women contributed significantly to the war effort by taking on industrial factory jobs and working in shipyards and other war production facilities. Referred to as “Black Rosie’s.” They worked as welders, machinists, assemblers and more. They also served in the military as nurses, in the Women’s Army Corps, and in the all-Black 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion, responsible for clearing the backlog of overseas mail.

1941: Fair Employment Practices Committee

Under pressure from labor leader A. Philip Randolph, who planned a march of 250,000 Black workers in Washington, D.C., to demand jobs, President Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 8802, creating the Fair Employment Practices Committee. The order banned racial discrimination in any defense industry receiving federal contracts and led to more employment opportunities for African Americans.

1944: Admission to the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen Union. African Americans who maintained railroad locomotive engines had to sue the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen all the way to the Supreme Court to gain admission to the union in 1944.

1945: Maida Springer Kemp (1910-2005)

Kemp worked as a labor organizer in the garment industry and became the first Black woman to represent the U.S. labor movement overseas when she visited post-war Britain on a 1945 labor exchange trip. She went on to spend many years liaising between American and African labor leaders as a member of the AFL-CIO and became affectionately known as “Mama Maida” for her work. Throughout her life, she advocated for civil rights and women’s rights in America and internationally.

1946: Operation Dixie

Encouraged by massive growth in union membership (including African Americans) during the 1930s and 1940s, the Operation Dixie campaign launched an effort to organize the largely non-union Southern region’s textile industry and strengthen the power of unions across the United States. Spearheaded by the Congress of Industrial Organizations, in concert with civil rights organizations, the campaign covered 12 states. Operation Dixie failed because of racial barriers, employer opposition and anti-Communist sentiment that labeled anyone who spoke out as an agitator. In 1947, the Taft-Hartley Act was enacted, allowing states to adopt so-called “Right to Work” laws that limited union power.

1948: Zelda Wynn Valdes (1905-2001)

Fashion and costume designer Zelda Wynn Valdes was the first Black designer to open her own shop and business on Broadway in New York City. Her designs were worn by entertainers including Dorothy Dandridge, Josephine Baker, Marian Anderson, Ella Fitzgerald, Mae West, Ruby Dee, Eartha Kitt, and Sarah Vaughan.

1950s-2000s

1950s: Post-War Era

Despite some gains during World War II, African Americans still experienced high unemployment rates compared to white workers and faced significant barriers to upward mobility in the workforce. Labor was largely confined to low-wage, segregated jobs, primarily in service industries like domestic work, with limited access to skilled trades and significant discrimination within unions. These struggles fueled the developing Civil Rights movement and pushed for greater labor equality.

1953: Clara Day (c.1923-2015)

As a clerk at Montgomery Ward, she resented the segregation of white and Black employees, which led her to push for change. Clara Day first began organizing co-workers at Montgomery Ward in 1953 and went on to hold several roles in the Teamsters Local 743. She also helped found the Coalition of Labor Union Women and the Teamsters National Black Caucus. A passionate advocate for labor, civil rights and women’s rights, she helped bring attention to issues like pay equity and sexual harassment.

1954: Norma Merrick Sklarek (1926-2012)

In 1954, Norma Merrick Sklarek became the first Black woman to become a licensed architect in New York. Her projects included the United States Embassy in Tokyo, Japan in 1976 and the Terminal One station at the Los Angeles International Airport in 1984.

1950s-1970s: The Era of Social Movements. The three decades after World War Il saw the emergence of many movements in American society for equal rights, most notably the Civil Rights Movement. One milestone for this movement was passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, a landmark civil rights and labor law in the U.S., outlawing discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex and national origin.

1950s-1970s: Social Movements

During the Civil Rights Movement, African American artists like Nina Simone, and Harry Belafonte used their music and performances to advocate for social change. One significant event happened when Eartha Kitt was invited to Lady Bird Johnson’s “Women Doers Luncheon” in 1968. During the event, Kitt publicly spoke out against the Vietnam War and criticized several of President Johnson’s policies, consequentially derailing her U.S. career for more than a decade.

1963: Bayard Rustin (1912-1987) and Anna Arnold Hedgeman (1899-1990) Plan the March on Washington

While the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. made headlines with his “I Have a Dream” speech, it was Rustin who worked closely with the labor movement behind the scenes, planning and organizing the massive March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, one of the largest nonviolent protests ever held in the United States. As an openly gay man, Rustin’s crucial role in the March on Washington was often diminished and forgotten. As a member of the executive council of the AFL-CIO and a founder of the AFL-CIO’s A. Philip Randolph Institute, Rustin fought against racism and discrimination in the labor movement. Hedgeman was a civil rights activist, educator and writer who helped organize the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. She was a lifelong advocate for equal opportunity and employment.

1968: Poor People’s Campaign

This multiracial campaign, launched by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference under the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Rev. Dr. Ralph Abernathy, recognized that civil rights alone did not lift up African Americans. The campaign called for guaranteed, universal basic income, full employment and affordable housing. Dr. King said, “But if a man doesn’t have a job or an income, he has neither life nor liberty, nor the possibility for the pursuit of happiness. He merely exists.”

1968: Memphis Sanitation Strike

African American sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee, represented by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), went on strike to obtain better wages and safety on the job, winning major contract gains. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the strike’s most influential supporter, was assassinated on April 4 as he was leaving his hotel room to address striking workers. Today, AFSCME produces the I AM STORY podcast, which follows the history of the 1968 Memphis Sanitation Strike as told by those who experienced it firsthand.

1969: League of Revolutionary Black Workers (LRBW)

Established in Detroit, Michigan, the LRBW united several revolutionary union movements across the auto industry and other sectors. A significant influential Black Power group, the LRBW had a tremendous influence on the left wing of the labor movement. Their activism played a pivotal role at the intersection of race and class in the ‘post-civil rights’ era.

1970: Melnea Cass (1896-1978)

Known as the ‘First Lady of Roxbury,’ community organizer and activist Melnea Cass helped provide social services, professional training and labor rights education that empowered Boston’s most vulnerable workers. One of many examples is a program she co-created that provided childcare for working mothers. Her advocacy helped achieve a major legislative victory in 1970 when Massachusetts passed the nation’s first state-level minimum wage protections for domestic workers since the Great Depression.

1970s: Workforce and Unemployment

By 1970, about nine million African American men and women were part of the workforce in the United States. This workforce included the steel, metal fabricating, meatpacking, retail, railroading, medical services and communications industries, numbering one third to one half of basic blue-collar workers. Yet, at that time, the African American unemployment rate was still two to three times more than that of whites.

1970: Dorothy Bolden (1923-2005)

Future president Jimmy Carter presents a Maids Day Proclamation to Dorothy Bolden. Dorothy Bolden began helping her mother with domestic work at age 9. She was proud of her work, but also knew how hard it could be and wanted domestic workers to be respected as part of the labor force. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., her next-door neighbor, encouraged her to take action. In 1968, she founded the National Domestic Workers Union, helping organize workers on a scale never seen before in the United States. The union taught workers how to bargain for higher wages, vacation time and more. She also required that all members register to vote, helping to give workers a stronger voice both on the job and in Georgia policy.

1979: Wage Decline Begins

Hourly wages for many American workers stagnated or dropped beginning in 1979, except for a period of strong across-the-board wage growth in the late 1990s. Researchers have found a correlation between the decline of unions and lower wages, and between lower wages and a growth in economic and social inequality, resulting in African Americans and Latino workers facing greater wage stagnation than white workers.

1980s: Declines and Milestones

During the 1980s, African American labor continued to face significant challenges including high unemployment rates, disproportionate job displacement due to industrial decline, and the widening wage gap compared to white workers. Particularly impacted were African American women, and blue-collar African American workers who relied heavily on shrinking union jobs during this period. Despite this, some progress was made with an increased Black union membership among men, affecting barriers to full equality in the workforce due to earlier civil rights movements.

1990: Hattie Canty (1933-2012)

Hattie Canty lived in Nevada and worked several jobs as a maid, a school janitor, and eventually a room attendant on the Las Vegas Strip. She became active in her union, was elected to the executive board of the Culinary Workers Union (CWU) in 1984 and became union president in 1990. She was the first Black woman and the first room attendant elected to this position in CWU. During her tenure, she brought together workers from several nations, helped push forward racial justice within the industry and her union, and founded the Culinary Training Academy, which helps people of color obtain better jobs in the hospitality industry.

1990: Americans with Disabilities Act

Inspired by the Civil Rights Act, and signed into law by President George H.W. Bush, Congress passed the Americans with Disabilities Act, prohibiting discrimination against all people living with developmental and physical disabilities in the workplace, transportation, public accommodations, state and local government services and telecommunications.

Recent History

2008: Smithfield Packing Plant Workers

Smithfield workers join the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW). After 16 years of organizing by African American, Latino, and Native American workers, the Smithfield Packing Plant in Tar Heel, North Carolina finally succeeded in joining the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) union. Despite years of intimidation, violence, and illegal firings by the company’s management, the new local union was chartered as UFCW Local 1208. Today, there is a mural of civil rights leaders on the wall of the union hall.

2008: Barack Obama (1961- )

Barack Obama was elected to the first of his two terms as the 44th President of the United States becoming the first African American president in U.S. history. During his first two years in office, he signed many landmark bills into law, including his very first piece of legislation, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which impacted the labor movement. Obama also reduced the unemployment rate to the lowest it had been in more than eleven years.

2012: #BlackLivesMatter

Formed after the 2012 murder of a young African American man in Florida, Trayvon Martin, the Black Lives Matter movement grew as protests mounted against other killings, including the 2020 slaying of George Floyd in Minneapolis. In several communities, labor unions have built ties with #BLM chapters to address chronic issues of dehumanization, inequality, and exploitation.

Telling School Tales: Rural School History Research

Telling School Tales: Rural School History Research

Casey Thomas Jakubowski

In 1998, my first teaching position in Little Valley Central School District in Cattaraugus County New York, as a social studies instructor led to a career exploring the nooks and hollows of educational history across the Empire State (Jakubowski, 2020; 2023). The former school district is part of the Appalachian region of New York State, which includes 14 counties from Lake Erie to the Catskills. This district was undertaking an annexation study, or school district reorganization attempt in my first year. I knew nothing of these events, and was unaware that there was a nearly 100 year history of rural school reform focusing on creating more urban-like schools in rural areas (Jakubowski, 2020).  The first major community activity surrounding a reorganization, or merger is the Boards of Education voting to undergo a study. After the districts are presented with the study, the Board then votes to accept the study. If this passes both boards, it is sent to the community in a non binding, or advisory vote (straw). When the straw vote passed in both Cattaraugus and Little Valley, people began to protest outside the school every morning and evening, to “save the panthers” or to “save the heart of LV” as I remember the sign read. My students were pulled from extracurriculars by their parents in order to protest the potential merging of the two districts, Cattaraugus to the north, and Little Valley, a one building K-12 district with just under 300 students. When the “binding vote” happened that year, and the Cattaraugus community defeated the proposed measure, we wondered, “What next?”

I left the district that fall, to move to central New York, and once again, a school centralization impacted my life. A family member’s teaching position was abolished, because the five year moratorium had expired. After a few resignations and retirements, the family member was once again employed. This is an all too unfortunate reality across Appalachia’s schools, as decreasing population, and wealth decline usually results in less money for school budgets, and personnel.  I was once again wondering “What next?” This time, I used a Masters level research paper (unpublished, 2004)[1] to begin to pursue what has been a twenty-year scholarly chase through the rural, upstate, and state education department policy of recommending schools which are, according to the 1947 and 1958 Master Plan for School District Reorganization, too small to produce efficient, or effective programming for their children[2]). I also learned that New York State’s policy towards rural districts is as Fulkerson & Thomas (2019) describe it “urban normative” or the urban areas are the norm, and should be promoted as an ideal form of local government.[3] So I dug deep, and researched cases of successfully undertaken and defeated centralizations, or consolidations, or mergers, or reorganizations.[4] The history of why so many reorganizations failed post 1960 became an obsession. I learned from my pursuit of the 20th and 21st century of educational history of New York two major tracks: most educational historians write on the early period (founding of New York as a colony to just after World War I) and second, the state’s citizens have experienced some major fights with the state bureaucratic system in Albany over really basic issues of democracy, local control, and what citizenship means.

Telling tales out of school, as the title implies is often thought of as a negative, and uncivilized approach, yet I view these two tales, about Kiantone and Morganville, as critical, and very necessary to explain some of the basic urban rural divide of New York State, and further the rural anger deployed at government, which observers believe is current, but is actually rooted in Post World War II actions by the the State Education Department.[5]

The State of New York has, as Tracy Steffes writes in her seminal work, been interested since the late 1800s in “reforming” rural schools through strategic aid packages to develop longer terms and more “professional” schools in rural areas.[6] Thomas Mauhs-Pugh described how the local school governing boards were once held as exemplars, because they created “12,000 little republics” that taught governing principles at the local level.[7] Benjamin Justice combed the archive to discover how religious governing practices amongst local Board of Education members often resulted in appeals to the State Education Department.[8] Heffernan’s article on the conflict between State Education Department expectations for school facilities and local board’s realities describe how dissonance started in the early 20th century between the professionals and the public.[9]  Chiles’ work on Progressive era school reform describes how Gov. Smith undertook school reform in rural areas as a signature effort among his governorship, and later presidential aspirations.[10] Loveland’s dissertation on the transition between the State Superintendent for Education to the University of the State of New York’s Commissioner of Education and President is a landmark in describing how the first three leaders at the newly created State Education Department had created a policy of rural school reform[11]. As Parkerson & Parkerson wrote in the crucial book on rurals school reform, the “ABCs” or Assessment, bureaucracy and consolidation, have haunted, especially in New York, rural schools who try to survive in the midst of population decline, decreasing wealth, and state policy which relies on a long standing deficit narrative, which Biddle & Azano expose as more than 100 years old.[12]

Having learned about the New York Master Plan for School District Reorganization (which is still in effect in 2023) I began to explore areas close to where I was living at the time, namely Genesee County, and discovered a huge gap in my understanding of the creation of the present day accepted “Central School Districts.” Many New Yorkers take for granted these post-Depression era created districts, many of which did not assume final form until the midst of the Cold War. These often hyphenated schools recall a vague history, or “mystic chords of memory” as Kammen would call it,[13] of the past, prior to the baby boomers (post World War II) entering school and gaining an affiliation as members of those relatively newly created schools. As Osterude describes in a profound work on the Broome County area, identity, and affinity moved from community to the newly created school districts, often built outside of town, and the social hub of the area.[14]  Yet I know from my own experience (auto ethnographic history?)[15] the process must not have been smooth, or why would perfectly rational people hold so closely to an identity or mascot, as much of the national research claimed was the reason centralizations/ consolidations/ mergers are defeated?

Seeking to understand school history, as Carol Kammen, or David Kyvig[16] calls “nearby history” led me to the Genesee County Archives, where I discovered the Morganville Question. At the bottom of the Byron Bergen Central School District 1958 Master Plan entry was a footnote, which caught my attention:

By alteration of boundary, effective Sept. 17, 1951, all of the property in the Town of Stafford, formerly C2 Stafford, was transferred from CS 1 Byron to CS 1 Le Roy. (p. 301).[17]

After meeting with the Genesee County historian, and reading the records from the New York State Archive on the town of Stafford, I went to the town historian, and museum and learned a bit about this “school tale.”[18]

            Stafford 2, Morganville, was one of the wealthier common schools in the area. A community with a pottery manufacturing center, and a two room schoolhouse, the community provided a grade 1-6 education to their children. In a tuition agreement very common until the creation of centralized school districts, and the birth of a semi modern high school in each C.S.D, Morganville partnered with South Byron by sending their secondary students for instruction. When the Centralization petition was launched, the Stafford 2 district residents overwhelmingly voted no, and wanted to maintain their two room schoolhouse, and independence. In records, memos, telegrams, and newspaper reports of the time period, the fight between Morganville (Stafford 2) and SED heated up, and became a back and forth with the end result of the community locking the South Byron Board of Education employee teacher out of the building. The parents refused to send their children.[19] The local school district superintendent, who is a field based representative of the commissioner of education, was on the side of the Stafford 2 (Morganville) representatives.

            The archival records in Genesee county, and the State Archives in Albany record the back and forth memos and telegrams of the bureaucracy and the local residents trying to enter into a positive, less public solution. What became the clue to a second quest was a note on one of the memos from senior SED officials to the bureau and the local superintendent: “We do not need another Kiantone.”[20] More on Kiantone below.

            What finally concluded the “Morganville question” was a bit of bureaucracy, and the intervention of a neighboring district. LeRoy, a larger village in Genesee County, had a well developed secondary school, as befitting an Erie Canal town home to the creators of Jell-o. The leaders of LeRoy offered free transportation and free tuition for schooling to any family in Stafford 2 who could transport their children to the boundary line. Using this subtle recruiting technique, the narrative from Morganville changed from “independent” to “LeRoy” as their demands for a school centralization destination. In one of the communications between the Morganville leaders and SED, the justification given for the break in the previous relationship with South Byron was the expectation of a better quality of secondary education for children at the LeRoy schools. South Byron was, in the opinion of the Morganville leaders, too small and not robust enough.[21]

            The bureaucratic support arrived in the form of the New York State Thruway Authority, and its construction of the mainline branch from Buffalo to Rochester. The layout of the Eisenhower Interstate system, a divided, limited access highway modeled on the autobahn, was a technology and transportation revolution in the United States post World War II. As the Morganville community and the State were seeking a solution to the “question” of where would the children attend school, the Thruway authority indicated that the disruption caused by construction of the thruway and the needed overpass bridges for state and local routes would be a long term logistical problem for Morganville Children to attend South Byron. The authority provided the State Education Department face saving “cover” to move Morganville (Stafford 2) student population to LeRoy. The Morganville residents celebrated a win, and the State Education Department reaffirmed that the Master Plan was a voluntary policy, and the districts presented in the plan were recommended[22].

            This situation was very different than just five years prior, where the Kiantone community south of Jamestown, in the Northern Appalachian region,  experienced the wrath of State Education Department, while participating in a “farmers rebellion” that brought to the fore questions of democracy, local self determination and the international questions of communism, and totalitarianism post World War II.

            Just south of Jamestown, of the “outlying” urban areas of New York State in the mid 1800s, Kiantone was a farming community along the Kiantone creek, with early settlers engaging in what Fox calls resource clearance in the areas of lumbering and then farming. The Kiantone residents erected seven Common Schools as part of the State enabling legislation. As Jamestown to the north, the residents began a long term tuitioning partnership with the secondary academy in Jamestown. Through World War I, and then World War II, the region provided significant material and manpower, and as a local furniture manufacturing hub in Buffalo, became a large urban center devoted to consumer products, and then the war efforts.  At the Fenton- Chautauqua County historical society, the story of Kiantone is well known, and is a special area to the research people, because it represents the hypocrisy of national policy and local actions.[23]

            During World War II, the Rapp-Coudert commission was charged by the New York state Legislature with rooting out communists among college professors in New York City. It also became the leading committee examining how to create a more efficient and effective public school system, with a focus on rural districts. After the New York State Board of Regents inquiry into the condition of public schools in the 1930s, at the height of the Great Depression, the report concluded that rural schools were extremely inefficient, and ineffective. Prior to the centralization movements of the 1930s-1970s, New York was home to a large number of smaller common schools, offering grades 1-6, and or tuitioning children out to neighboring districts. The Master Plan for School District Reorganization reported that in 1930, there were over 10,000 districts in New York State. By 1945, there were just over 5,000 (today, there are just under 700). At the secondary or 7-12 levels, parents would send children to villages based or academies for a secondary education focused on the Board of Regents curriculum and end of course exams introduced just after the Civil War, as Beadie describes. The Rapp Coudert commission established minimums to ensure efficient and effective spending on public education in the state. The commission, under the guise of a voluntary or recommended reorganization plan of 1947 (p. 18) created an organized plan to ensure that proposed districts would meet minimums in grades 1-6 and 7-12.  Those minimums include 1500 dollars for elementary programming and 1800 for secondary expenditures. The minimums for pupil enrollment recommended at least 1000 students in a district.[24] As these recommendations emerged during the World War II era (1941-1945) the final report and “Master Plan” was released in 1947.[25] As the Master Plan was established, residents in each proposed district could submit to the local District superintendent of schools a request to begin the centralization process. Kiantone, with its long standing relationship to Jamestown, had been included in the Frewsburg Central School District proposed area. After some initial negotiations, one of the Kiantone schools was moved to Jamestown,[26] but the rest were included with Frewsburg. 

 Trustees of the Common Schools, and residents,  vigorously opposed this arrangement, and felt, at the minimum, two major negatives precluded their inclusion with Frewsburg. First, the long relationship with Jamestown was primary. Second, the program in Jamestown was far superior to Frewsburg offerings. The Common School trustees in Kiantone refused to turn the key to the school over, and in August of 1948, the attorney for the Frewsburg Central School, accompanied by a “Phalanx” of New York State Troopers “crashed into a human barricade “ (Jamestown Post Journal, August 24, 1948).[27]  A scuffle resulted, with a World War I veteran, who was waving an American Flag, pushed to the ground.  In the ensuing media coverage, comparisons with John Paul Jones, a demand for the House Un American Activities Committee to investigate, and a comparison to the totalitarianism of the USSR and Germany were published. Investigations were launched by the American Legion and the New York State Grange into the incident, and then the State Education Department’s response. Deputy Commissioner Jeru, interviewed by the Post Journal, was rather harsh, and described the residents of Kiantone as self-serving, and neglectful of their children’s future.[28] Commissioner of Education Franscis Trow Spaulding, in speeches, referenced troublemakers in rural areas, who did not see the bigger picture of centralization and the need to create more and better training opportunities[29]. Mrs. Potter, of the area, an Albany Normal School trained librarian, became the spokesperson for the community, and led statewide hearings, rallies, and pressures which resulted in some seismic shifts to state law and policy. First, the Kiantone residents created a private school, and the State Appeals court in Buffalo ruled that private, non organization sponsored schools were legal. This legalized schools unaffiliated with formal organizations, such as religious groups to operate. Second the process was altered (after Morganville) so that a majority of voters in the individual, in existence schools were needed to authorize the centralization or consolidation. This home rule precedent was crucial in the slowing down of enabling consolidations.[30]

The story does not end here, as many districts in the Northern Appalachian Region area of New York have experienced this pressure to reorganize, centralize, or consolidate. In every county, districts have faced pressure to examine consolidation. The ongoing drumbeat of efficiency, and effectiveness from the State policy and political leadership is often matched by local and regional media opinions that “bigger is better.” Yet in large urban districts, “smaller is successful” has been supported by politicians, philanthropists, and others. Why this dissonance? As Fulkerson & Thomas have pointed out, the schema of many policy makers supposes that urban is normal, cities are the way, and rural isn’t worth support or investment.

            These two examples of school district reorganization, whose stories exist in local archives, which to this point, have not been extensively researched, help fill a research gap into the rural rage and distrust of state officials. The two examples provide a demonstrable dissonance between the words, deeds, and actions of the United States government towards democracy overseas, and the internal state government downplaying local communities concerns that their rights were violated and should be subjected to state level bureaucratic planning. No wonder rural residents in New York view state government promises as fleeting and empty.[31]

            I would, in this short essay, recommend that scholars, students, and the curious examine these smaller, more local archives as sources of interesting, compelling, and frankly subaltern histories that do not mirror the narrative which explains the creation of our now taken for granted local governing structures.

References

Primary Archives:

Fenton Historical Society of Chautauqua County. Kiantone history files. Jamestown, NY

Genesee County historical society. Local history files. Batavia, NY.

New York State Archives.  Education Department Bureau of School District Organization. File B0477. Albany, NY.

Secondary sources:

Biddle, Catharine, and Amy Price Azano. “Constructing and reconstructing the “rural school problem” a century of rural education research.” Review of Research in Education 40, no. 1 (2016): 298-325.

Chiles, Robert. “SCHOOL REFORM AS PROGRESSIVE STATECRAFT: EDUCATION POLICY IN NEW YORK UNDER GOVERNOR ALFRED E. SMITH, 1919–1928.” The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 15, no. 4 (2016): 379-398.

Fulkerson, G. & A. Thomas. Urban normativity. Lexington, 2019.

Heffernan, Karen M. ““Much more chewing”: a case study of resistance to school reform in rural New York during the early twentieth century.” Paedagogica Historica (2021): 1-19.

Jakubowski, C. Rural school consolidation: A case study. Unpublished seminar paper, SUNY Binghamton, 2004.

Jakubowski, C. Hidden Resistance. Unpublished PhD Dissertation, SUNY Albany, 2019.

Jakubowski, C. School Consolidation. New York State Archives Magazine 20.1, 2020.

Jakubowski, C. A Cog in the Machine.  Alexandra, VA: Edumatch, 2021.

Jakubowski, C. Rural Education History: State Policy Meets Local Implementation.Lexington, 2023.

Jakubowski, C. Schooling for a Fight. Lexington Press (expected publication 2025).

Justice, Benjamin. The war that wasn’t: Religious conflict and compromise in the common schools of New York state, 1865-1900. SUNY Press, 2009.

Kammen, Carol. On doing local history. Rowman & Littlefield, 2014.

Kammen, Michael. Mystic chords of memory: The transformation of tradition in American culture. Vintage, 2011.

Kyvig, D. et al.  Nearby History: Exploring the Past Around You, 4th ed. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2019.

Loveland, Fred Gerald. Victor M. Rice and Andrew S. Draper: the origins of educational centralization in rural New York State. State University of New York at Buffalo, 1993.

Mauhs-Pugh, Thomas J. “12,000 Little Republics: Civic Apprenticeship and the Cult of Efficiency.” New York History 86, no. 3 (2005): 251-287.

New York State. Master Plan for School District Reorganization. Albany, 1947

New York State. Master Plan for School Districts Reorganization. Second Ed. Albany, 1958.

Osterud, Nancy Grey. Putting the Barn Before the House. Cornell University Press, 2012.

Parkerson, Donald, and Jo Ann Parkerson. Assessment, bureaucracy, and consolidation: The issues facing schools today. Rowman & Littlefield, 2015.

Spaulding, Francis Trow. Addresses and Papers of Francis Trow Spaulding ,President of the University of the State of New York and Commissioner of Education from July 1, 1946-March 25, 1950. University of the State of New York, State Education Department, 1967.

Steffes, Tracy L. “Solving the “rural school problem”: New state aid, standards, and supervision of local schools, 1900–1933.” History of Education Quarterly 48, no. 2 (2008): 181-220.

[1] Jakubowski, 2004 (SUNY Binghamton, History Department Masters presentations).

[2] NYSED, 1958

[3] Fulkerson & Thomas, 2019

[4] Jakubowski, 2019

[5] Initial findings  presented at multiple Researching New York Conference and Jakubowski (2025)

[6] Steffes, 2008

[7] Mauhs-Pugh, 2005

[8] Justice, 2009

[9] Heffernan, 2021

[10] Chiles, 2016

[11] Loveland, 1993

[12] Parkerson & Parkerson, 2015, Azano & Biddle, 2016.

[13] Kammen, 2011

[14] Osterude, 2011

[15] Jakubowski, 2021

[16] Kammen, 2014; Kyvig, et al, 2021.

[17] NYSED, 1958

[18] Genesee County historical society, Batavia, NY. Local history files. NYS Archives, Bureau of District Reorganization files.

[19] See footnote 18

[20] See note 18

[21] See note 18

[22] See note 18

[23] Fenton Historical Society, Kiantone School Consolidation files, Jamestown, NY.

[24] Reports of the New York State Legislative Commission (Rapp-Coldert Commission, 1941-1945)

[25] New York State Master Plan for School District Reorganization, 1947.

[26] Master Plan, 1947 p. 107 & 122.

[27] Fenton Historical Society, Kiantone File, Newspaper clippings.

[28] See note 27

[29] Spaulding, 1967

[30] See note 27

[31] Jakubowski, 2019

Curriculum on “The Arab-Israeli Conflict”

Curriculum on “The Arab-Israeli Conflict”

By Chloe Daikh

Chloe Daikh was a volunteer at a refugee camp in Palestine, served as an AmeriCorps VISTA College Access & Success Coordinator, and taught at a boarding school in Virginia. Following this article is the Institute for Curriculum Services (ICS) description of the grade 6-12 lessons and links to its resources. The package for “Teaching the History of the Arab-Israeli Conflict” includes lesson plans, a slide deck, learning objectives, essential questions for students to address, primary sources, and links to recommended videos (https://icsresources.org/curriculum/the-arab-israeli-conflict/). Some of the ICS documents are included along with comments on the article and the ICS curriculum by local teachers.

Since Hamas’s attack on October 7, 2023, there has been an increased interest in helping K-12 students understand the historical background and context of the current violence in Israel/Palestine that has now escalated to a war in Lebanon and the possibility of a regional war involving Syria, Yemen, and Iran. On October 20, 2023, The Office of the Texas Governor encouraged schools to use a list of resources shared by the Texas Education Agency “to increase awareness and understanding of the Israel-Hamas war and root causes of conflict in the region” (Office of the Texas Governor, Greg Abbott, 2023). First in a list of four resources hyperlinked to the press release is a document from the Institute of Curriculum Studies (ICS) titled “Support for Classroom Discussion on the Hamas-Israel War,” which in turn includes a link to ICS’s curriculum, “Teaching the History of the Arab-Israeli Conflict Using Primary Sources.”

The Institute for Curriculum Services (ICS) is not new to teacher training. Founded in 2005, their website states that 18,000 teachers have engaged in their workshops, and that all 50 states and D.C. are represented within ICS’s pool of participants. The reach of ICS’s influence in secondary school instruction is further facilitated through cooperation with the National Council of Social Studies and many of their state affiliates and local districts, including New York Department of Education; North Carolina Department of Public Instruction; Iowa Department of Education, among many others (ICS, 2024). ICS published its “Teaching the History of the Arab Israeli Conflict Using Primary Sources” in 2022 and has promoted the curriculum as an effective tool for teachers to help students understand the history of the conflict. In addition to the curriculum, which is accessible for free online and includes worksheets and graphic organizers for students (2022a), ICS offers workshops, both online and in-person in collaboration with public school districts across the country (2024). However, key aspects of ICS’s curriculum are misaligned with standards for the study of history and geography and are not conducive to helping students understand the root causes of Hamas’s attack on October 7, 2023, nor Israel’s widely condemned response. This curriculum, by providing students with insufficient context and inaccurate information, primes students to uncritically condone and support Israel’s ongoing settler colonial violence and dispossession, and contributes to the dissemination of racist, Islamophobic tropes.

Misalignment with C3 Framework for Social Studies State Standards

By using standard curriculum formatting and creating materials and activities that can be easily implemented for class instruction, ICS’s curriculum looks like a credible curriculum, and thus may seem like a legitimate tool for teaching about Israel/Palestine. ICS claims that their curriculum is “guided by, and…in alignment with, state and national standards” (ICS, 2018b). The organization points to the Frameworks in the C3 Framework for Social Studies as supposed guiding principles for the creation of their curricular resources, “with a particular focus on Dimension 2: History and “Dimension 3: Evaluating Sources and Using Evidence” (ICS, 2018b).The National Council for the Social Studies states that the C3 Framework was developed “for states to upgrade their state social studies standards” and “for practitioners…to strengthen their social studies programs” (2013). ICS claims to specifically and particularly align with two Dimensions within the framework: “History” and “Evaluating Sources and Using Evidence” (ICS 2018b). While ICS does not claim to address “Geography,” its substantial use of (political) maps requires attention to the desired learning outcomes of that Dimension as well. An analysis of the ICS curriculum compared to the learning outcomes outlined in the C3 Framework demonstrates the curriculum’s failure to meet standards for social studies education. This article will highlight specific ways in which the ICS curriculum is misaligned with the C3 Framework’s learning outcomes, and will include resources that, had they been included in the curriculum, would meet the expressed skills standards and learning outcomes. The C3 Framework includes learning outcomes which are used as a basis of the critique of ICS’s curriculum.

C3 Framework Learning Outcomes (achieved by end of Grade 12) (National Council for Social Studies, 2013, pp. 42-49) Dimension 1: History Change, Continuity, and Context “Use questions generated about individuals and groups to assess how the significance of their actions changes over time and is shaped by the historical context.” Perspectives “Analyze complex and interacting factors that influenced the perspectives of people during historical eras.” “Analyze how historical contexts shaped and continue to shape people’s perspectives.” Historical Sources and Evidence “Analyze the relationship between historical sources and the secondary interpretations made from them.” “Critique the usefulness of historical sources for a specific historical inquiry based on their maker, date, place or origin, intended audience, and purpose” “Use questions generated about multiple historical sources to pursue further inquiry and investigate additional sources.” “Critique the appropriateness of the historical sources used in a secondary interpretation.” Causation and Argumentation “Analyze multiple and complex causes and effects of events in the past.” “Distinguish between long-term causes and triggering events in developing a historical argument.” “Integrate evidence from multiple relevant historical sources and interpretations into a reasoned argument about the past” “Critique the central argument in secondary works of history on related topics in multiple media in terms of their historical accuracy.”   Dimension 2: Geography  Human-Environment Interaction “Evaluate how political and economic decisions through time have influenced cultural and environmental characteristics of various places and regions.” Evaluate the impact of human settlement activities on the environmental and cultural characteristics of specific places and regions.”   Human Population “Evaluate the impact of economic activities and political decisions on spatial patterns within and among urban, suburban, and rural regions.”   Dimension 3: Evaluating Sources & Using Evidence Gathering and Evaluating Sources “Gather relevant information from multiple sources representing a wide range of views while using the origin, authority, structure, context, and corroborative value of the source to guide the selection.”  

ICS’s selection and framing of primary source material is misaligned with several learning outcomes outlined within the C3 Framework’s Dimension 2: History. ICS limits the sources provided to official governmental and intragovernmental documents and fails to provide citations for the background information that frames each of the sources and provides the overarching narrative of the curriculum. In this way, ICS fails to provide students with the opportunity to adequately strengthen skills pertaining to the study of history. Furthermore, through their narrow selection of sources, ICS fails to model the effective evaluation of sources and use of evidence for students, as outlined in Dimension 3 of the C3 Framework.

Through its failure to adequately address skills mandates as outlined in the C3 Framework, ICS dangerously misrepresents the historical context and multiple perspectives that are necessary for helping students understand the context of Hamas’s October 7 attack. In order for ICS to meet those standards, it would need to include significantly more primary sources and provide more accurate context. The ICS curriculum implies that Zionist settlers accepted Palestinians as deserving of national sovereignty in their own right and that it was solely Palestinians who rejected Jewish neighbors, beginning with the UN Partition Plan of 1947 (ICS, 2018a). The curriculum emphasizes this implication by providing inaccurate and incomplete information, insufficient, misleading and oversimplified context, and a single perspective of events. Furthermore, it is not grounded in the skills or learning outcomes outlined within the C3 framework, to which ICS claims to adhere.

Inaccurate & Incomplete Information

ICS provides inaccurate and incomplete information within the curriculum, particularly when it comes to the perspectives and experiences of Palestinians. Two serious issues that contribute to this lack of accurate and complete information are the lack of Palestinian-authored sources. Only one source written by a Palestinian is included in the entire curriculum–the Declaration of the State of Palestine (1988), in the final lesson (2022f). The Palestinians are only represented in the curriculum long after decades of representing themselves under the British Mandate. In this way, the designers of the ICS curriculum de-historicize and choose to frame Palestinian “nationalist aspirations” in a document that is comparable to the Israeli Declaration of Independence included in Lesson 4 (2022e). This factually inaccurate portrayal of the inception of the First Intifada misrepresents the most important aspects of the Intifada; namely, that it was a largely nonviolent series of protests and economic boycotts of Israel that were predominantly organized by women, eventually involved the support of Israeli peace organizations and was as much of a surprise to the PLO as it was to the Israeli occupation (Bacha, 2017).

To address the lack of Palestinian perspectives within the curriculum, primary sources that deal with the Palestinian experience of the Nakba should be included to provide an insight into the Palestinian perspective of the 1948 war, particularly given that the Nakba is widely viewed as ongoing to the present day in the context of continued settlement expansion. The Nakba Archive (2002) is a collection of oral history testimony from Palestinian refugees living in Lebanon and provides valuable context for both the Declaration of the Establishment of Israel document and the Arab League Declaration on the Invasion of Palestine, which is the second primary source included in ICS’s Lesson 4 (2022e). Additional incorporation of photographs or videos from the UNRWA Film & Photo Archive, which provides audio and visual documentation of Palestinian refugees since 1948 would provide additional insight into the lived experience of Palestinians during the Nakba and counter the lack of visual representation of Palestinians within the curriculum (UNRWA, 2016).

The inclusion of a wider variety of primary sources such as film, photographs, and posters would provide students with a more accurate representation of the First Intifada and would align with the C3 Framework’s stated learning outcomes. It would also provide insight into the rise of more violent tactics employed by Palestinians since the Second Intifada that would better contextualize the Hamas attack on October 7. ICS states, in framing the First Intifada at the beginning of Lesson 5, that “Palestinians attacked Israelis with improvised weapons and firearms supplied by the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), which organized much of the uprising” (2022f). This factually inaccurate portrayal of the inception of the First Intifada misrepresents the most important aspects of the Intifada. By inaccurately portraying the First Intifada, ICS legitimizes Israel’s violent response to the uprising and lacks context that would help students understand the cause-and-effect relationship between Israeli military and settler violence and the use of violent tactics by some members and groups of the Palestinian resistance.

Lack of Context

Building on the issues that stem from the lack of accurate and complete information, the lack of sufficient context further strengthens ICS’s implication that Palestinians have only been antagonistic aggressors to Israel and their Jewish neighbors. In Lesson 1 of the curriculum (2022b), the excerpt from Theodor Herzl’s “The Jewish State” (1896) lacks contextualization regarding the existing Palestinian population and their historical ties to the land ignoring the settler colonial nature of Zionism and its impact on the indigenous population of Palestine (ICS, 2022b). In Lesson 3, there is a major gap in source material from May 1948 to June 1967 (ICS, 2022d). This gap leads to a total lack of context for the inception of the 1967 war, as well as the experience of Palestinians in the years between 1948 and 1967. This lack of context makes it impossible for students to investigate Palestinian perspectives and understand cause-and-effect relationships between historical events.

The excerpt from “The Jewish State” highlights Herzl’s concerns about antisemitism across Europe, proposing the establishment of a Jewish state as a solution. The document reflects the persecution faced by Jews in Europe and their quest for a sovereign homeland. However, the document lacks contextualization regarding the existing Palestinian population and their historical ties to the land ignoring the settler colonial nature of Zionism and its impact on the indigenous population of Palestine (see Table 1 2a & 6a). It also omits Herzl’s recognition of the need for support from the Great Powers for the successful establishment of a Jewish state.

The gap in source material and information on events that occurred between May 14/15, 1948 and the June 1967 war conveys an inaccurate and incomplete depiction of the experience of Palestinians in the months and years after the creation of the state of Israel. This erasure functions in service of the curriculum’s portrayal of Palestinians as exclusively antagonistic and unwilling participants in peacebuilding. Of course, the entirety of “The Jewish State” (Herzl, 1896) is too long of a document to present to 6th-12th grade students, the target audience of ICS’s curriculum; however, the excerpt excludes text that highlights important context for the document (see Table 1 2b & 3d). An aspect of early Zionism that is also apparent in Herzl’s text but excluded from ICS’s excerpt is that multiple locations were considered for the Jewish state. Herzl highlights Palestine and Argentina (Argentine in the text). The selection of Palestine or Argentina for the Jewish state would be left to the Powers and Jewish consensus, “we shall take what is given us, and what is selected by Jewish public opinion” (American Zionist Emergency Council, 1946). Herzl mentions “the present possessors of the land” in reference to either or both Palestinians and Argentinians already living in areas proposed for the Jewish state, demonstrating his awareness that there were people living in both areas prior to Zionist colonization. By adding a few sentences to the excerpt, ICS could better contextualize the document regarding the existing Palestinian population, the settler colonial nature of Zionism, and the role of European imperialism’s support for the foundation of the Jewish state. Palestinian nationalism shifted away from “Arab/Ottoman” to “Palestinian/Arab” in the context of “watershed events” that included the British control of Palestine and the Balfour Declaration (Khalidi, 1997/2010). The ICS curriculum frames nationalism as only legitimately developing pre-World War I, which severely misrepresents the historical contexts in which Palestinian nationalism developed (see 1a, 4a & 4b). Herzl expresses the need for Great Power intervention for the Zionist project to be reified: “Should the Powers declare themselves willing to admit our sovereignty over a neutral piece of land, then the [Jewish] Society will enter into negotiations for the possession of this land” (American Zionist Emergency Council, 1946). Herzl further elaborates on the necessity of Great Power subscription to the Zionist project, “The Society of Jews… [will put] itself under the protectorate of the European Powers.” Herzl’s document demonstrates an amenability to the colonial mandate system that eventually came into effect after the ratification of the Covenant of the League of Nations in 1922.

Another useful addition to the collection of primary sources that would provide much-needed context for the time during May 1948 and June 1967 are the UN General Assembly Resolution 194 (1948) and UN Security Council Resolution 242 (1967). UN General Assembly Resolution 194 Article III (1948) codifies the right of return for Palestinian refugees who wish “to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors” and “that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property.” UN Resolution Security Council 242 (1967) of the “withdrawal of Israel armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict,” i.e. the 1967 war. and reaffirms the importance of “a just settlement of the refugee problem.” The Israeli unwillingness to honor this right of return coupled with the continuous expansion of settlements since 1967 and continued occupation of the West Bank (and Golan Heights) are major obstacles to peace that are completely ignored by the ICS curriculum.

Single Perspective

The ICS curriculum privileges Great Power perspectives, from which Zionism as a political project was birthed, without providing sufficient information on their imperial context. This serves to legitimize the Great Power intervention in the region beginning after World War I, and the expansion of Israeli settlements since 1967, without providing sufficient information to nuance or question this perspective.

By relying heavily on primary source documents that advance only the Great Power colonial perspective such as the Balfour Declaration, Sykes-Picot Agreement, and Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations, ICS’s curriculum presents the colonial project and interventions advanced by the authors of these documents as legitimate, without giving students the resources or information to question the right or authority of the Great Powers to undermine the sovereignty of people living within the region following the end of World War I. This legitimization of the Great Power’s imperial project in the region after World War I contributes to the portrayal of Palestinians as antagonistic and unwilling to work towards a peaceful resolution to the conflict.

Additionally, the curriculum developers’ decision to use only political maps (themselves crafted by ICS) that do not align with internationally recognized borders and disputed territories, rather than demographic and land use maps, fail to provide information that is essential to understanding Palestinians’ perspectives. ICS’s curriculum completely ignores the expansion of settlements in the West Bank, confiscation of land, demolition of homes, and displacement of civilians, avoiding any discussion of numerous UN resolutions and United States foreign policy over time. By depicting political boundaries that have resulted from military occupation as if they were incontrovertible facts, the maps erase the issue of territorial annexations that have not been recognized under international law. The illegal settlements in the West Bank are legitimized in the video at the beginning of Lesson 4 (ICS, 2019). They are described as “in locations chosen for their strategic security value,” though there is no explanation of what that “value” might be. The video further states that “the number of settlements remained sparse until the late 1970s. They would become a major issue in later negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.” The illegal settlements and settlement expansion are not mentioned again in the curriculum, despite the fact that settlement expansion and settler violence, along with the right of return for Palestinian refugees, are two of the primary concerns in negotiations with Israelis. Furthermore, settlements have been deemed illegal in successive judgements in institutions of international law, human rights and justice (Amnesty International, 2019).

A primary source that would provide useful insight into the perspectives of people living within Palestine contemporaneous with the other sources included by ICS is the Resolution of the General Syrian Congress at Damascus, which was ratified on July 2, 1919. The congress was composed of members from all regions of Ottoman Greater Syria who described themselves as “provided with credentials and authorizations by the inhabitants of our various districts, Moslems, Christians, and Jews” (1919). The resolution provides important insight into how Arab nationalism was shifting as a result of the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire. Of the ten points included in the resolution, five include important context for several of the primary sources included in ICS’s curriculum, namely the Sykes-Picot Agreement, the Covenant of the League of Nations, the British Mandate for Palestine, the Balfour Declaration, and the Faisal-Weizmann Agreement. Point three is a protest against Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations; the Congress unanimously rejected the institution of a mandate. Point six addresses the issue of Zionism. It states, “We oppose the pretensions of the Zionists to create a Jewish commonwealth in the southern part of Syria, known as Palestine” and that “our Jewish compatriots shall enjoy our common rights and assume the common responsibilities.” The Congress was not opposed to the millennia-long presence of Jewish people in the land of Greater Syria, but soundly opposed to the Zionist settler colonial project, an important distinction left out of the ICS curriculum. Point eight of the resolution rejects the separation of Greater Syria into Lebanon, Syria, and Palestine, as was outlined in the Sykes-Picot agreement. Finally, point ten calls for the annulment of “these conventions and agreements” whose aim is establishment of a Zionist state in Palestine in light of “President Wilson’s condemnation of secret treaties,” seemingly a direct response to both the Sykes-Picot Agreement and the Balfour Declaration.

The inclusion of demographic and land-use maps would provide needed information to contextualize Palestinian resistance, particularly to settlement expansion since 1967. Alex McDonald of the Texas Coalition for Human Rights, in a video lesson titled “Letting Maps Tell the Story” (2020), is a valuable resource for educators seeking to help students employ geographic studies skills to examine the geopolitical context of the conflict. Additionally, the inclusion of UN Resolution 2334 (2016) would provide useful information on the ways in which Israel’s settlement expansion continues to make a two-state solution unviable. This would provide students valuable information on the Palestinian perspectives of Israel’s policy of expansion, and additional context for discussing causes and effects. The ICS curriculum developers chose to use only politically contested maps, rather than the very demographic and land use maps that would illuminate the situation under the Mandate before 1948, and which indeed formed the basis for the UN Partition Plan. For the period after 1948, land use, demographic information, and water resource maps would better align with the C3 Framework and provide context for discussing causes and effects.

Conclusion

Not only is the curriculum misaligned with standards for skill development in history and social studies, but it also fails in its expressed objectives. The stated goal of ICS’s curriculum, entitled “Teaching the Arab-Israeli Conflict” is that “students will become more knowledgeable global citizens and gain confidence in following current world issues” (2022a). Under the FAQ section of the ICS website, under the drop-down menu titled “What is ICS’s commitment to accuracy and balance?” the organization states that “accuracy is a value in itself. At a time when public discourse in America is becoming less committed to accuracy and facts, we think it is all the more important that we study historical documents and ground our understanding of history in them” (2018b). ICS’s curriculum, by providing students with insufficient context and inaccurate information across all five lessons, primes students to uncritically condone and support Israel’s ongoing settler colonial violence and dispossession rather than helping them become “more informed global citizens” (2022a). It fails to meet both its own professed goals and standards for social studies education and skills acquisition. This curriculum prevents students from engaging with the full historical context of the current situation and implicitly claims that the exclusion and erasure of Palestinian voices is an acceptable form of “accuracy.”

References

American Zionist Emergency Council. (1946). Texts Concerning Zionism: “The Jewish

State” by Theodor Herzl (1896). Jewish Virtual Library. Retrieved November 14, 2024, from https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/quot-the-jewish-state-quot-theodor-herzl. 

Amnesty International. Chapter 3: Israeli Settlements and International Law. (2019,

January 30). Amnesty Retrieved on November 14, 2024 from https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2019/01/chapter-3-israeli-settlements-and-international-law/.

Archive. (2002). Nakba Archive. Retrieved November 14, 2024, from https://www.nakba-archive.org/#. 

Bacha, J. (Director). (2017, November 12). Naila and the Uprising [Film]. JustVision. Retrieved November 14, 2024, from https://justvision.org/nailaandtheuprising. 

General Syrian Congress (1919 July 2). The resolution of the General Syrian Congress at Damascus proclaims Arab sovereignty over greater Syria (July 2, 1919). In A.F. Khater (Ed.), Sources in the History of the Modern Middle East, 2nd edition (2011) (pp. 158-160). Wadsworth Cengage Learning. 

Institute for Curriculum Services. (2018a, June 4). ICS Episode 3: A place to belong. Vimeo. Retrieved November 14, 2024, from https://vimeo.com/273382658. 

Institute for Curriculum Services (2018b, June 27). About Us. Retrieved November 14, 2024, from https://icsresources.org/about-us/#faqs. 

Institute for Curriculum Services. (2019, September 9). ICS Episode 4: War and Peace. Vimeo. Retrieved November 14, 2024, from https://vimeo.com/358927133.

Institute for Curriculum Services. (2022a, February 23). Teaching the Arab-Israeli Conflict. Retrieved November 14, 2024, from https://icsresources.org/curriculum/the-arab-israeli-conflict/. 

Institute for Curriculum Services. (2022b, February 23). Lesson 1: Zionism and Arab Nationalism. Retrieved November 14, 2024, from https://icsresources.org/wp-content/uploads/ICS_Lesson1_Zionism.pdf. 

Institute for Curriculum Services. (2022c, February 23). Lesson 2: Broken Promises.

Retrieved November 14, 2024, from https://icsresources.org/wp-content/uploads/ICS_Lesson2_BrokenPromises.pdf. 

Institute for Curriculum Services. (2022d, February 23). Lesson 3: The British Mandate

Era. Retrieved November 14, 2024, from https://icsresources.org/wp-content/uploads/ICS_Lesson3_The-Mandate.pdf. 

Institute for Curriculum Services. (2022e, February 23). Lesson 4: From 1948 to the

Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty. Retrieved November 14, 2024, from https://icsresources.org/wp-content/uploads/ICS_Lesson4_1948to1979.pdf. 

Institute for Curriculum Services. (2022f, February 23). Lesson 5: The Continuing Arab-

Israeli Conflict & Peace Process. Retrieved November 14, 2024, from https://icsresources.org/wp-content/uploads/ICS_Lesson5_ContinuingConflict.pdf. 

Responses to Chloe Daikh and the ICS Curriculum

Given the often-contentious nature of the subject discussed in the article above, editors for Teaching Social Studies solicited comments from teachers and preservice educators. Those responses are below.

Alysse Ginsburg, Uniondale (NY) High School: I am a 12th grade history teacher with 25 years of classroom teaching experience. The editors asked me to respond to this essay in 250-500 words. Of course, I can’t possibly respond thoughtfully or comprehensively to a 5,000 word essay in the allotted space, but I do have a few thoughts to share. Prior to reading the essay, I had not used ICS materials in my classroom. A colleague with experience using them had good things to say, so I investigated further. As a history teacher, I believe it is important to carefully examine the sources of content I might bring into my classroom to be sure they are accurate and align with standards and best practices. Here are a few things I concluded about ICS’s lessons:

  • The lessons on the Arab-Israeli conflict align well with both the New York Social Studies Framework and New Jersey’s Learning Standards for Social Studies (which are similar to the C3 Framework).
  • ICS’s lessons rely on primary sources representing different parties. For example, in the lesson on Jewish and Arab nationalism, I noticed the inclusion of primary sources from a mainstream Zionist thinker and a mainstream Arab nationalist thinker and documents from both the first Zionist Congress and the first Arab Congress. The number of sources provided seemed balanced and appropriate for the available time a teacher would have to teach the lesson.
  • ICS has been around for almost 20 years and has professional development partners in many state and local education agencies; 21,000 teachers have elected to participate in ICS programs; and ICS is a Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources Consortium Member.

I was honestly reluctant to submit this response without knowing even more, so I had a call with ICS and asked them to address some of the author’s comments directly. In addition to patiently answering my questions, they said they looked forward to seeing the essay (and even speaking to the writer) so they could understand her concerns and consider improvements, as they often do with teacher input. For example, they told me that they recently updated one of their PD sessions to further clarify the specific reasons why Palestinians and Arabs were opposed to the United Nations Partition plan. I’m an educator who believes in a growth mindset, so this pleased me. Though I had very limited space and time to respond to the essay, I was impressed by what I saw and heard from ICS, and I encourage you to look at their lessons and materials and judge for yourself. My main critique, which I told them, was that they should modify their materials for students at different reading levels. They said they were working on it. 

Dianne Pari, former social studies chair, Floral Park (NY) High School: As an educator with experience as a social studies teacher, department chairperson, and currently a supervisor of student teachers, I have observed a growing hesitation among today’s teachers to address the Arab-Israeli conflict in the classroom. Many shy away from student questions about the current situation. Why? There are many complex reasons, but it cannot be overlooked that in today’s politically charged climate, even the most neutral or fact-based responses can be misconstrued, criticized, or politicized. There have been cases where educators have faced backlash from parents and school administrations simply for presenting information that challenges students’ or families’ existing beliefs or biases.

This makes it imperative that curriculum materials on this topic are balanced, historically accurate, and free of bias. I support Chloe Daikh’s assertion that the ICS curriculum on “The Arab-Israeli Conflict” lacks this balance, particularly in its limited inclusion of Palestinian voices and perspectives. Such omissions can unintentionally perpetuate a one-sided narrative, portraying Palestinians predominantly as aggressors and Israelis solely as defenders for example. The Daikh article provides a detailed evaluation of the ICS curriculum, and I agree with her conclusions. Unfortunately, she, nor the ISC, touch upon the issue I raised earlier, that teaching the Arab-Israeli Conflict is so polarizing today, that it is often being avoided altogether.

If I were teaching this topic today, I would begin with two foundational lessons to establish historical context, especially of previous conflicts, and then transition to an analysis of the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. To ensure a broad and balanced understanding, I would incorporate a range of news sources, including major American outlets and international media such as Al Jazeera that offer valuable resources for classroom discussion. Online, Al Jazeera provides “Israel-Gaza War in Maps and Charts: Live Tracker” (https://www.aljazeera.com/news/longform/2023/10/9/israel-hamas-war-in-maps-and-charts-live-tracker).

Students must be provided with balanced, credible, and comprehensive resources that foster critical thinking and informed discussion—especially when addressing complex and emotionally charged global issues such as this one and more importantly, teachers must be supported by school administrators when their lessons are challenged.

John Staudt, The Wheatly School, East Williston, NY: As a teacher and a historian, I largely agree with Chole Daihk’s analysis of the Institute for Curriculum Services (ICS) curriculum on “The Arab-Israeli Conflict.” There are several significant methodological and historiographical shortcomings, including biases that teachers should explore with students when teaching controversial topics. 

The ICS prioritizes using state-centric sources while overlooking everyday experiences of the people most impacted by the actions of state characters. It leaves out numerous critical primary sources – most egregiously – from Palestinian voices and perspectives. The exclusive inclusion of mostly official documents is a prime example of what the scholar Edward Said called “textual imperialism.” Textual imperialism is a form of revisionist history written from the perspectives of the victors, while overshadowing the personal experiences of those who lost and suffered the most. (Said, 1993) By excluding Palestinian literature before the 1988 Declaration, the ICS distorts the history of Palestinian nationalism and erases decades of Arab political activism. 

The exclusion of nineteen-years of actions, words and events between 1948 to 1967, reveals a broad gap in the literature and obscures crucial historical information including, among other things, evolution of early resistance movements, the formation of Palestinian political consciousness and the fate of Palestinian refugees. These omissions inevitably distort historically crucial links and obscures important continuities underlying present-day controversies and conflicts. These significant oversights also distort the First Intifada as PLO-initiated violence which minimizes its original non-violent, civic nature. 

The geographic mapping options Daikh makes note of demonstrate significant bias. By incorporating political maps that legitimize military occupation, the curriculum normalizes settlements that are recognized as illegal under international law. When coupled with the absence of sources featuring Palestinian perspectives this further exacerbates the historical revisionism in the curriculum. By excluding alternative demographic and land-use maps, students do not grasp the circumstances — displacement, resource distribution, fragmentation — underlying Palestinian perspectives and reasons for resistance. 

The ICC’s narrative makes Palestinian activism appear violently aggressive, while misinterpreting Israeli policy as almost entirely defensive. A good example of the problem is the exclusion of Israeli historian Ilan Pappé’s “1948 paradigm.” Pappe challenges the mainstream Israeli narrative of the 1948 war as a struggle for independence, instead arguing it was a deliberate campaign of ethnic cleansing to expel and displace Palestinians — a perspective he claims has been suppressed in historical discourse. The ICC approach further obscures the structural, settler-colonialism of the Israeli-Arab conflict (Pappé, 2006). I think it is significant to mention that Pappé was born in Israel after the 1948 war and is a Jew whose parents fled Nazi Germany in the 1930s. Pappé teaches in Great Britain after he was pressured to resign his position at the University of Haifa because of his confrontational views of official Israeli government policies. 

As teachers, our goal is to provide students with a range of materials to analyze so they can reach conclusions based on evidence and share with colleagues in respectful conversations. By utilizing selected sources focusing on mostly one perspective of this deeply complicated issue, the ICC’s approach reenforces historical and geographical biases and does a disservice to students and the general public who are interested in learning more about this and other controversial topics. To counter these tendencies, historians and social studies teachers must employ meticulous attention to detail and incorporate perspectives that challenge an educator’s own arguments instead of following preordained interpretive templates. 

Erin Smyth, Social Studies Education Student, Hofstra University: As a graduate student pursuing a degree in secondary social studies education, I was asked to review the Institute for Curriculum Services (ICS) curriculum on the Arab-Israeli conflict alongside Chloe Daikh’s critique of it. On the whole, I agree with Daikh’s analysis. The ICS curriculum fails to provide a complete historical account of the conflict. It leaves out essential historical events and excludes sources from individuals, particularly Palestinians, directly affected by the conflict. This omission hinders students from developing a nuanced understanding of a complex historical issue.

My biggest issue with the ICS curriculum is the absence of Palestinian-authored sources. Aside from the one late inclusion in the curriculum which Daikh notes, the 1988 Palestinian Declaration of Independence, there are no primary sources that focus on Palestinian perspectives, even though the curriculum repeatedly includes Zionist and Israeli sources. This imbalance results in a distorted narrative which is evident in the way the Nakba is covered. The curriculum gives little attention to the mass displacement of Palestinians in 1948 and omits oral histories, failing to convey how the Nakba is experienced by generations of Palestinians. As a result, students are denied the opportunity to understand one of the long-lasting impacts of the conflict on Palestinians.

These omissions not only negatively impact students’ ability to understand the Arab-Israeli conflict, but shape how they understand power, legitimacy, and justice in history. The inclusion of oral histories and more balanced source material is crucial. Without doing so, students cannot fully understand the causes and consequences of the conflict, nor can they evaluate historical claims with the critical thinking skills the C3 Framework demands.

As a future educator, I believe I have a responsibility to teach with integrity and eliminate bias in order to give my students the most complete understanding of history I can. That means resisting overly sanitized or one-sided curricula and ensuring my classroom is a space where multiple narratives are included and analyzed. The ICS curriculum, in its current form, does not meet that standard.

Teaching the Unteachable: The Holocaust and Kids These Days

Teaching the Unteachable: The Holocaust and Kids These Days

Ari Mandel

The Holocaust is one of the most daunting subjects for teachers to tackle, and it grows more challenging as its survivors and their direct memories fade away. Educational approaches to this profoundly significant chapter of history are constantly evolving, often revealing critical issues about how the Holocaust is presented, the consequences of universalizing its lessons, and the need to balance meaningful engagement with the risk of trivialization or desensitization. While Holocaust education remains an indispensable part of modern curricula, current instructional methods sometimes risk diluting its impact by reducing it to an oversimplified lesson on intolerance, rather than treating it as a distinct historical catastrophe shaped by complex historical, social, and political dynamics.

This paper argues that effective Holocaust education requires maintaining a delicate balance between universal lessons and historical specificity while addressing ongoing issues in its presentation. It examines how educational approaches sometimes fall short in emphasizing the Holocaust’s unique characteristics, critiques the risks of trivialization, and underscores the importance of thoughtful engagement. It argues for interdisciplinary and experiential methods to ensure students engage deeply and critically with this critical subject, fostering both historical and moral awareness.

Andy Pearce writes in The Shapes of Holocaust Education in the Early Twenty-First Century (2022)[1] that despite the increase in Holocaust education, many adults today still have an incomplete or even incorrect understanding of what happened. This is a major paradox – Holocaust education is more widespread than ever, with school programs, museums, documentaries, and memorials, yet people’s understanding of the event seems to be declining. Pearce argues that this may be because we are putting too much focus on quantity over quality. Simply adding more content about the Holocaust – more books, more films, more commemorations – does not necessarily lead to deeper understanding. Instead, there needs to be a shift toward more thoughtful engagement that encourages students to question, reflect, and truly understand the gravity and complexity of what happened.

One of the biggest issues in Holocaust education today is the tendency to universalize it – to present the Holocaust as a symbol of general human suffering or to draw broad lessons about human rights and tolerance. While it is true that the Holocaust contains important universal lessons about prejudice, hate, and what can happen when these go unchecked, there is a risk in oversimplifying it. Historian Peter Novick, in The Holocaust in American Life[2] (2000), argues that the Holocaust has become a “moral and ideological Rorschach test,” meaning that people tend to see in it whatever they want to see, often using it to support their political or social agendas. This way of looking at the Holocaust can make it lose its specificity – the particular historical, ideological, and cultural circumstances that led to this genocide. When we use the Holocaust as a general metaphor for evil or intolerance, we can easily lose sight of the particular factors that allowed it to happen in the first place: the racial theories, the bureaucracy, the complicity of ordinary people, and the very specific political and social context of post-WWI Europe. Without focusing on these details, students may struggle to understand how an advanced, seemingly “civilized” society could systematically plan and execute the murder of six million Jews and millions of other innocent people.

Arthur Chapman, in Learning Lessons of the Holocaust[3](2020), also critiques this trend of framing the Holocaust mainly in terms of human rights or as an example of intolerance. He argues that while connecting the Holocaust to other events or to broader human rights issues can make it feel more relevant to students, it can also obscure what made the Holocaust unique. The Holocaust was not just another example of prejudice – it was a carefully planned and executed genocide, driven by specific racial ideologies, supported by modern technologies, and enabled by the collaboration or indifference of millions of people across Europe. When educators draw too many parallels between the Holocaust and other historical atrocities or present it as just another case of human cruelty, they risk minimizing the specific dangers posed by antisemitism.

Edward Rothstein[4] makes a similar point in his critique of the Museum of Tolerance, where he argues that mixing the Holocaust with contemporary issues like bullying or discrimination creates an oversimplified narrative. When the Holocaust is used as a kind of shorthand for any and all forms of prejudice, we end up losing the specificity of what actually happened, and why it happened. This is not to say that the Holocaust does not have broader lessons – it absolutely does – but those lessons need to be rooted in a deep understanding of the historical facts and circumstances.

Another major problem in Holocaust education is that students often come away with a focus on the perpetrators – on Hitler, the Nazis, and the details of how the genocide was carried out – while the voices and experiences of the victims are sometimes lost in the process. It is crucial to remember that the six million Jews who were murdered were not just numbers. They were individuals, each with a story, a family, hopes, dreams, and a culture that was nearly erased. Jewish communities in Europe were diverse, vibrant centers of culture, religion, art, and intellectual life. Yiddish literature, theater, music, religious study – these were all thriving before the war. Thousands of towns and cities were emptied either partially or entirely, and an entire way of life that had evolved over centuries was violently destroyed. When we reduce the Holocaust to numbers or see it only in terms of evil perpetrators, we risk losing sight of what was really lost – the human beings, the families, and the incredible cultural richness that was almost entirely wiped out. By focusing on the stories of individuals – children whose lives were cut short, artists whose work was lost, religious leaders whose wisdom was extinguished – we can help students understand the profound human cost of the Holocaust.

Teaching the Holocaust effectively also means addressing what made this genocide possible. How could it happen? How could so many people be complicit, either actively or passively? How did a modern, industrialized country like Germany become a place where millions of innocent people were murdered in cold blood? These questions are not easy to answer, but they are essential if students are to truly understand the Holocaust. One key factor was the long history of antisemitism in Europe, which paved the way for the Nazi ideology to take root. Antisemitism was not new – it had been part of European society for centuries, and the Nazis were able to exploit existing prejudices and fears. They used modern technology – propaganda, the radio, the press – to spread their hateful ideology and to dehumanize Jews in the eyes of the German public. Bureaucracy also played a huge role. The Holocaust was, to a large extent, a “bureaucratic genocide,” carried out not by a handful of madmen but by thousands of ordinary clerks, railway workers, policemen, and soldiers, each of whom played a small role in the killing machine.

Historiographical debates surrounding the Holocaust add another layer of complexity to the topic. Two of the most prominent debates are the functionalist versus intentionalist interpretations and the Historikerstreit (“historians’ dispute”) of the 1980s. Functionalists argue that the Holocaust evolved gradually and was not the result of a single, premeditated plan by Adolf Hitler. They emphasize the chaotic and improvised nature of Nazi governance, suggesting that local initiatives and bureaucratic momentum led to the escalation of genocidal policies. Historians such as Hans Mommsen and Martin Broszat represent this view, arguing that Hitler’s role, while significant, was not one of a micromanager dictating every step of the Final Solution.

Intentionalists, on the other hand, maintain that the Holocaust was a deliberate plan masterminded by Hitler from the beginning. This perspective emphasizes Hitler’s ideological obsession with antisemitism, as seen in Mein Kampf and his public speeches, where he frequently referred to the “annihilation of the Jews.” Intentionalist historians, such as Lucy Dawidowicz and Eberhard Jäckel, argue that the Holocaust was the culmination of a long-standing plan to eliminate Europe’s Jewish population. These contrasting views shape how we understand the Holocaust – whether as the result of a chaotic and disorganized regime or as the fulfillment of a clear and unchanging ideological mission.

The Historikerstreit further complicated Holocaust historiography by raising questions about how the Holocaust should be contextualized within broader histories of violence and genocide. German historian Ernst Nolte argued that the Holocaust was not unique but part of a larger pattern of twentieth-century atrocities, including Soviet gulags. Nolte’s views sparked intense backlash, with critics like Jürgen Habermas accusing him of relativizing Nazi crimes and diminishing the Holocaust’s moral and historical significance. The debate highlighted deep divisions among historians over how to approach the Holocaust – as an event that stands apart or as one atrocity among many in an age of ideological conflict.

Understanding these debates is critical for educators because they influence how the Holocaust is taught in classrooms. Should the Holocaust be presented as the inevitable result of Hitler’s ideological hatred, or as a complex process driven by bureaucratic chaos and opportunism? Should it be contextualized within global histories of genocide, or treated as a unique event? These questions shape the narratives students encounter and affect how they interpret the Holocaust’s causes, consequences, and lessons.

In recent years, there has been a troubling rise in Holocaust denial and distortion. Surveys by the Claims Conference reveal that many young people are unaware of basic facts about the Holocaust, such as what Auschwitz was or even the number of Jews killed. This lack of knowledge makes students more susceptible to denialist arguments and misinformation. To combat this, it is crucial to teach students not just what happened during the Holocaust but also how we know what we know. Holocaust denial is not just about denying facts, it is about undermining the credibility of survivors, historians, and the very idea of historical evidence. Teaching students how historians verify facts, how we know what happened, and why it matters is essential. This means incorporating lessons on media literacy, primary and secondary sources, teaching students how to critically evaluate evidence, and showing them why denialist arguments are false. This is especially important in the age of social media, where misinformation can spread so quickly and where conspiracy theories thrive.

Jeffrey Glanz[5], in Ten Suggestions for Teaching the Holocaust (1999), advocates for “hands-on” and “minds-on” learning, emphasizing that students should actively engage with the material through reflective analysis rather than passive learning. Educators must focus on the specific aspects of the Holocaust – its historical context, the entrenched antisemitism that enabled it, and the societal structures that allowed it to happen. Holocaust education should go beyond simply transmitting historical facts, encouraging students to critically engage with how systemic hatred, conspiracy theories, and scapegoating can lead to mass violence. By framing antisemitism as the “oldest and most dangerous conspiracy theory,” educators can help students understand the deep roots of this prejudice and its persistence throughout history.

James Joyce once said, “In the particular is contained the universal.” We don’t need to tell students that the lesson of the Holocaust is not to be a bully – they will come to that conclusion themselves if they are given a deep understanding of what happened. The power of Holocaust education lies in the details – the particular stories of individuals, the specific historical circumstances, the choices people made. If students understand these details, they will understand the broader lessons.

Another key aspect of effective Holocaust education is the use of interdisciplinary methods. The Holocaust is not just a historical event – it is also a deeply moral, psychological, and cultural one. Literature, like the works of Primo Levi, Viktor Frankl or Elie Wiesel, can help students understand the emotional and personal aspects of the Holocaust in a way that pure history might not be able to. These personal accounts give a face to the victims, allowing students to see them not as numbers but as people. Psychology can help explain how ordinary people became complicit in such an atrocity. Studies on obedience, such as those by Stanley Milgram, show how people can be influenced to do things they would not normally do. Philosophy and ethics also play a crucial role in Holocaust education. Discussions about moral responsibility, the nature of evil, and the role of individual agency allow students to grapple with the ethical questions raised by the Holocaust. Was it possible for perpetrators to refuse to participate? What motivated bystanders to remain silent? These questions encourage students to think deeply about moral choices and about the factors that influence human behavior.

Experiential learning – such as visiting Holocaust museums, listening to survivor testimonies, or using virtual reality to explore historical sites – can also make a big difference. These experiences bring history to life and make it more immediate and real. Survivor testimonies, whether read, watched, or listened to, are incredibly powerful. They humanize the history and help students connect to it on an emotional level. They help students see the Holocaust not as an abstract historical event but as something that happened to real people, people like them.

The challenges of teaching the Holocaust in high school revolve around maintaining historical specificity while making the content accessible and impactful for students. The risks of universalizing the Holocaust, of losing its specificity, or of overwhelming students with its horrors, require a thoughtful approach. By using interdisciplinary methods, encouraging critical thinking, and providing meaningful engagement, educators can ensure that Holocaust education respects the memory of the victims and provides students with the understanding they need to recognize and combat hatred and bigotry today, equipping them with a nuanced understanding of one of history’s darkest chapters. Ultimately, the goal is to empower students not only with historical knowledge but also with the intellectual tools needed to recognize and combat the forms of hatred and bigotry that continue to threaten society today.

The stakes for Holocaust education could not be higher. In an era of rising antisemitism, misinformation, and historical revisionism, ensuring that students have a deep, critical, and empathetic understanding of the Holocaust is crucial. This means moving beyond superficial narratives and creating a learning environment that respects the complexity of history and honors the memory of those who suffered. Through thoughtful, reflective, and innovative approaches, educators can play a key role in ensuring that the lessons of the Holocaust continue to resonate with future generations, fostering a commitment to justice, human dignity, and the prevention of future atrocities.

References

 Aly, G. (2014). Why the Germans? Why the Jews? Metropolitan Books.

Chapman, A. (2015). Learning lessons of the Holocaust. UCL Press.

Cole, T. (1999). Selling the Holocaust: From Auschwitz to Schindler; how history is bought, packaged, and sold. Routledge.

Dawidowicz, L. S. (1975). The war against the Jews: 1933–1945. Bantam Books.

Feinberg, S., & Totten, S. (Eds.). (2009). Essentials of Holocaust education: Fundamental issues and approaches. Routledge.

Glanz, J. (1995). Ten suggestions for teaching the Holocaust. The Social Studies, 86(3), 111–113.

Habermas, J. (1989). A kind of settlement of damages: The Historikerstreit and the past that will not pass. New German Critique, (44), 25–39. https://doi.org/10.2307/488496

Mommsen, H. (1986). The realization of the unthinkable: The “Final Solution of the Jewish Question” in the Third Reich. Contemporary European History, 1(1), 7–20. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0960777300000045

Novick, P. (1999). The Holocaust in American life. Houghton Mifflin.

Pearce, A. (2018). The shapes of Holocaust education in the early twenty-first century. Holocaust Studies, 24(3), 261–287. https://doi.org/10.1080/17504902.2018.1444113

Rothstein, E. (2002, November 17). Whose history is it? The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/17/arts/whose-history-is-it.html

Slezkine, Y. (2004). The Jewish century. Princeton University Press.

Stone, D. (2010). Histories of the Holocaust. Oxford University Press.

[1] Pearce, A. (2020). Challenges, issues and controversies: The shapes of ‘Holocaust education’ in the early twenty-first century. In A. Pearce, S. Foster, & A. Pettigrew (Eds.), Holocaust Education: Contemporary challenges and controversies (pp. 1–27). UCL Press. doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv15d7zpf.7

[2] Novick, P. (2000). The Holocaust in American life. Mariner Books.

[3] Chapman, A. (2020). Learning the lessons of the Holocaust: A critical exploration. In S. Foster, A. Pearce, & A. Pettigrew (Eds.), Holocaust Education: Contemporary challenges and controversies (pp. 50–73). UCL Press. doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv15d7zpf.9

[4] Rothstein, E. (2011, April 30). Making the Holocaust the lesson on all evils. The New York Times. nytimes.com/2011/04/30/arts/design/museums-make-the-holocaust-a-homily.html

[5] Glanz, J. (1999). Ten Suggestions for Teaching the Holocaust. The History Teacher, 32(4), 547–565. doi.org/10.2307/494162

Obsolete but Preferable: The Role of Textbooks in the Modern Social Studies Classroom

Obsolete but Preferable: The Role of Textbooks in the Modern Social Studies Classroom

Mitchell Meyer

Introduction

Despite everything we’ve been led to believe over the past two decades, books have not completely disappeared from our society, nor our schools. Indeed, the world has rapidly moved in the direction of technological reliance at a seemingly infinitely higher rate since it entered the 2020s. This is especially true in educational settings, as teachers have begun to use a vast array of online tools, and many students across the country are more and more completing digital assignments. Yet, with all of this progression, texts themselves have not been completely phased out. No analyzation of the American education system can be generalized for every single school, let alone every single teacher. However, it is clear that the majority are still based on or at least reference some form of text. Still, this begs a question regarding the nature of the role that physical textbooks still play in the modern classroom, especially social studies ones considering so much of said subject is based on text interpretation. Ultimately, it is clear that textbooks generally are no longer the sole basis for classes’ entire curricula but are still used as valuable reference points. In addition, there has been a major shift away from traditional physical textbooks, and a move towards more differentiated options. 

Literature Review

To begin my research, I first looked into suggestions on how textbooks could continue to be useful tools. As my research isn’t catered towards one specific grade level, the article “A Content Analysis of Vocabulary Instruction in Social Studies Textbooks for Grades 4-8″ by Janis Harmon, Wanda Hedrick, and Elizabeth Fox from The Elementary School Journal proved a useful starting point. These authors posit that the real issue with the current usage of textbooks is not the book itself, but the way it is used. The primary alternative method of using textbooks regards vocabulary terms. Specifically, the authors claim that “effective practices for promoting vocabulary development stress the importance of instruction that affects comprehension, not just word knowledge alone” (Harmon, Hedrick, and Fox, 254). Thus, textbooks can’t be used to create simple repetition practices, they have to challenge the students in innovative ways which force them to exercise critical thinking skills about the matter at hand. Therefore, vocabulary terms are one of the most essential parts of a textbook, but there must be a dramatic shift away from how this device is being used at present, and how it has been used in the past.

The second article, and perhaps the most important I read, comes from the Georgia Educational Researcher and was written by two professors from Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia, Dr. Amber Reed and Dr. Bailey Brown. Their article “Divergent Representations of Africa: A Qualitative Analysis of Georgia Social Studies Textbooks” explores the complexities of textbook usage in the deep American South, and how inherent biases towards various cultures is manifested in their content. In their research of Georgia’s public schools, they found that these issues are systemic and institutionalized. As such, they claim that “research also finds that educators are often ill-prepared to teach global perspectives in the social studies curriculum and that teachers’ biases and Eurocentric framework for teaching material can reproduce misconceptions about other countries” (Brown and Reed, 26). Thus, the biased nature of textbooks, at least in Georgia, is almost guaranteed for renewal as such misconceptions are carried down from one generation to the next. Therefore, there is likely little malicious intent in textbook bias, but failing to recognize it plays into the Eurocentric attitude that the American education system has long subscribed to. As such, this article doesn’t necessarily argue for doing away with textbooks altogether, but it does explain the need for a serious overhaul of the “traditional” methods they inspire.

The final article I referenced comes from the Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. Written by Professors Sarah Matthew and Craig McGill, “Honestly, I Had a Very Strong Reaction to This Reading” contrasts to the aforementioned pieces by actually arguing in favor of moving away from traditional textbooks. They explore what the term “graphic” means in a literary context and how it can often be misconstrued. On the one hand, it can immediately act as a scare tactic many use to support banning certain titles as it assumes such content is either violent or pornographic. But in reality, “graphic” doesn’t have to imply any extreme at all, and at its most basic level just refers to the use of imagery or illustrations (Matthew and McGill, 433). As such, Matthew and McGill heavily advocate for the increased use of graphic novels as alternatives for traditional textbooks, arguing that they can bring a new perspective and encourage certain critical thinking skills not found otherwise. Not only that, but they also advocate for teaching banned material itself, in order to show students why titles are challenged, and what implications doing so holds. 

Methodology

After doing my preliminary research into contemporary attitudes towards continuing textbook usage, I developed a two-pronged approach for my own research into this topic. The first prong involved transferring my findings from the articles I found into questions for three teachers I interviewed. While only three teachers’ opinions can be difficult to form conclusions upon, they are from different parts of New Jersey, and all teach at different levels. One teaches ninth and eleventh grade social studies at Ewing High School. Another teaches sixth grade ancient civilizations at Community Middle School in West Windsor. The final teaches sixth grade social studies at West Brook Middle School in Paramus. They were each asked the same five questions, three of which pertain to the above articles, and I have decided to retain their names in order to further encourage honesty in their answers. Moreover, they were not shown the data collected or previous teachers’ answers until after the interview was completed thereby ensuring autonomy in their responses. The five questions I asked these teachers were: overall, what do you believe the role of textbooks should be in the contemporary classroom; what kind of textbooks do you use, if any at all; do you believe textbook vocabulary terms can be beneficial if taught the right way; have you found that textbooks are generally more biased or unbiased; and how do you feel about teaching banned books, is it important that students are exposed to such material?

In contrast, the second prong focused on the student perspective. For this part of my research, I created a survey which I used to sample students in the class of the aforementioned teacher from Community Middle School. I was also able to obtain some responses from outside West Windsor from other students I work with, particularly in Byram and Stanhope in Sussex County. However, about 90% of the responses came from Community. As such, again I approached drawing blanket conclusions from this data with caution, but it still provides valuable insight into the direction at least this type of school is moving in. For the students I also asked five questions, inquiring about what type of texts are most appealing to them, which types they have used before, which types they believe would be most beneficial for them going forward, how positive an impact they believe textbooks have been on their education so far, and how strongly they believe textbooks can still play a positive role going forward.

The Results

Surprisingly to me, and with few exceptions, each teacher shared very similar answers to the five questions. The consensus seemed to be that textbooks should only act as complementary material to otherwise well-constructed lessons. Furthermore, you needn’t actively seek out textbooks for the niche purposes of vocabulary terms or just for the sake of teaching banned material. This can be done more organically, which is more beneficial to the fluidity of the unit at large. And textbooks, at least those in use in New Jersey, generally try to present information in unbiased ways, but as with any written material, biases do poke through. Hence why it is again important to not rely upon textbooks, or any one source for that matter, so heavily. Put most straightforwardly, the teachers I interviewed were in general agreement that textbooks can’t be the basis of an entire class but can still serve as one of many important resources for instruction or reference.

Similarly, the data I received from the students was not what I was expecting. In terms of what they found most appealing, graphic novels took about 1/3 of the responses. However, traditional textbooks achieved nearly the same number. Unsurprisingly, traditional textbooks were overwhelmingly the most used type of text, but eBooks fell not far behind, and graphic novels again took about 1/3 of the responses. Most surprising of all, traditional textbooks took the plurality of the responses for what type of text students believed would be most beneficial for them going forward, receiving about 40%. And finally, most of the responses for the final two questions fell somewhere in the middle, with zero responses indicating that they strongly disagreed, and 15% indicating that they strongly agreed. 

Conclusion

            The twenty-first century so far has seen a dramatic increase in reliance on technology and advancements in this field. And yet despite the seemingly resulting trend that physical textbooks have become obsolete, they can still play a role in the modern classroom. In completing my research, I have found that few have argued that such resources should be done away with entirely. In fact, many authors who have written on this subject have simply made suggestions for alternative practices. In addition, the teachers I spoke to were also generally supportive of continuing usage of textbooks so long as they do not dominate an entire class. Even students, who in general as an entire demographic have long been stereotyped as vehemently anti-textbook, seem not only willing, but happy to continue learning from them going forward. Again, it is important to acknowledge the small sample sizes used to conduct this study, and further research would have to be completed in order to make any type of generalization. But the general conclusion I draw from this project is that not only can textbooks still play a role in the modern classroom, but they must continue to be a commonly used resource.

 Implications

The data I received both from the teacher interviews and the student surveys somewhat contradicted the information I found in the articles. First and foremost, it seems that the educators I talked to have few issues with the systematic bias in textbooks. They don’t negate its existence; rather they just see them as any other type of text which has to be approached with caution. They see the bias actually as useful, because any source is going to include it. Thus, it can be beneficial to have their students look for biases and point them out when they find them. The implication of their lack of hesitation in this regard seems to be that the era of fully textbook-based classes is just about over. A simple reliance on one textbook dooms students to a narrow view of the world, especially in social studies settings. Moreover, running your class as such is a dangerous reversal of the current trend which aims to facilitate critical thinking, rather than simple content knowledge.

Furthermore, continued textbook usage is completely acceptable, but it has to be supplemented with abundant material from other sources. And not only do students see continued textbook usage as necessary, but many even see traditional textbooks as having played a significant and even positive role in their education. Thus, while it is important to supplement traditional textbooks with other material, it seems we cannot be so extreme as to throw them out entirely. They serve as a familiar source of knowledge which many might feel lost without. So, to answer the initial question this research was based off of, textbooks can absolutely play an important and expansive role in the modern classroom. We just have to ensure that they are being used the right way and are not the only type of source students are exposed to. 

References

Brown, Bailey, and Reed, Amber. 2023. “Divergent Representations of Africa: A Qualitative Analysis of Georgia Social Studies Textbooks.” Georgia Educational Researcher 20 (2): 26–44. doi:10.20429/ger.2023.200202.  

Harmon, Janis M., Wanda B. Hedrick, and Elizabeth A. Fox. “A Content Analysis of Vocabulary Instruction in Social Studies Textbooks for Grades 4-8.” The Elementary School Journal 100, no. 3 (2000): 253–71. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1002154.

Mathews, Sarah A., and Craig M. McGill. 2022. “‘Honestly, I Had a Very Strong Reaction to This Reading’: Social Studies Pre‐Service Teachers’ Application of Literacy Frameworks While Engaging with a Graphic Textbook.” Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy 65 (5): 431–39. doi:10.1002/jaal.1224.

Underground Railroad Sites in New York’s Southern Tier

Underground Railroad Sites in New York’s Southern Tier

By Kalyn Grant for the Binghamton Press & Sun Bulletin

KCGrant@gannett.com

Source[1] 

The Underground Railroad was a network of churches, safe houses and community centers that led thousands of people escaping slavery to freedom. Northern states like Pennsylvania played a major role in the progression of freedom, and the trail made several stops in New York, including the Southern Tier counties along the Pennsylvania border. Here are some of the local landmarks near Binghamton that played a role in the success of the Underground Railroad, including private homes and churches across the region.

The Seymore Home in Whitney Point, New York 

This Whitney Point home was owned by George Seymore in the late 1850s and was a spot along the Underground Railroad network. During that time most people who lived in the area knew the Seymore home was being used to hide and assist escaped enslaved people. According to former Broome County historian Gerald Smith, the home was later converted into an antique shop called the Underground Antiques and eventually turned into a private residence. 

Cyrus Gates Farmstead in Maine, New York

The Cyrus Gates Farmstead was once used as a sanctuary along the Underground Railroad. On 30 acres in Maine, Cyrus Gates’ home — referred to as “Gates’ white elephant” — was built in the 1850s by a New York City architect. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1999. Gates was a cartographer and surveyor, as well as a vocal abolitionist. Up in the attic, the Gates home had an emergency hiding place. Tucked behind a hidden panel in the back of a cupboard, escaped slaves could crawl into a 10-by-20 foot secret room in the house’s south wing attic, crouching so as not to hit the four-foot-tall ceiling, when they needed to hide.

Park Church in Elmira, New York

Members of Park Church, originally named the First Independent Congregational Church of Elmira, were active participants in the Underground Railroad. They included John W. Jones, an escaped slave who helped over 800 travel to freedom through Elmira and Jervis Langdon, a local financier who helped Frederick Douglass escape from slavery. The church offered shelter, provided food and finances, and took legal action against slavery. They also prepared a petition to officially record their stance as an anti-slavery church and in 1871, it became Park Church. In 2006, the church was added to the National Park Service’s Network to Freedom program. 

Binghamton, New York home of Dr. Stephen D. Hand

During the mid-19th century, the home of Dr. Stephen D. Hand stood at the site of the current Binghamton City Hall. After moving to Binghamton and starting a successful medical practice, he took an active role in the Underground Railroad. Hand opened his doors to those seeking freedom. His home was near two existing African American churches — the Bethel Church and the First Colored Methodist Episcopal Church — which created a trio of spots in close proximity offering help. The home was demolished in the 1960s and Binghamton City Hall took its place. The building has a plaque to recognize the significant role the Hand home placed in the Underground Railroad. 

Trinity AME Zion Church of Binghamton 

The church, founded in 1838, is a stop on the Downtown Binghamton Freedom Trail, recognized for its role in the Underground Railroad. The historic marker at the site shares its history as originally the AME Zion Church, a site that was a place of worship and safe spot to rest and receive help while traveling. Rev. Jermain Loguen, director of the Underground Railroad in Syracuse, was also pastor at the church in the 1860s.

Tulsa Massacre was Erased from History

Tulsa Massacre was Erased from History

By Alan Singer

My partner Felicia Hirata, friends Judy and Ruben Stern, and I were discussing the movie Killers of the Flower Moon and conversation shifted to the 1921 Tulsa Massacre. Felicia, Ruben, and I are all retired New York City high school social studies teachers and we realized we had never taught about the massacre in class, and we were unsure of whether we even knew about it when we were teachers. It had effectively been erased from history.

As a high school teacher, I did introduce my students, almost all African American and Latinx, to post-World War 1 racist attacks on African Americans with the poem “If We Must Die” by Claude McKay that was first published in the July 1919 of The Liberator coupled with photographs and newspaper headlines of the 1919 Chicago race riot showing white mobs and police attacking Blacks in the street. The McKay poem is especially powerful and resonated with students because it is a call for resistance.

https://alansingerphd.medium.com/the-100th-anniversary-of-the-tulsa-race-massacre-5cee3a689f6f[1]

I now teach social studies methods at Hofstra University in suburban Long Island, New York. After our discussion of Killers of the Flower Moon and the Tulsa Massacre, I decided to review how the post-World War 1 race riots and the Tulsa massacre were covered in the textbooks I used as a high school teacher and in more recent editions used by teachers today, books my students will likely use when they become teachers, books that continue to minimize the role that race and racism played in American history.

Ruben and I both taught United States history at Franklin K. Lane High School in the 1980s using Lewis Todd and Merle Curti’s Triumph of the American Nation as our primary textbook. Chapter 27 “New Directions in American Life Changing Ways (1900-1920)” ignores race, in fact the book’s index does not include race or racism as a category (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1986). After discussing World War 1, the authors skipped directly to the “Golden Twenties” where the post-war race riots were ignored. In a later chapter, “Decades in Contrast Changing ways (1920-1939),” “Black migration to the North,” “Disappointed hopes,” and “The riots of 1919” are briefly mentioned, but not what happened in Tulsa. Students learned from the book that “Frightened whites, convinced that black Americans were trying to threaten them and gain control, responded with more violence. Police forces, ill-equipped to deal with riots, usually sided with whites” (751). Perhaps even more disturbing than the omissions, is this justification offered for the white rioters.

I also used Thomas Bailey and David Kennedy, The American Pageant, 7th Edition (1983, D.C. Heath) with a college-level dual enrollment class. A section in Chapter 39, “The Politics of Boom and Bust, 1920-1932” titled “The Aftermath of War” includes a paragraph explaining that “Vicious race riots also rocked the Republic in years following the Great War . . . [I]n the immediate post-war period, blacks were brutally taught that the North was not a Promised land. A racial reign of terror descended on Chicago in the summer of 1919, leaving twenty-three blacks and fifteen whites dead. Clashes also inflamed Knoxville, Omaha, Washington, and other cities.” There was also no mention of 1921 and Tulsa massacre in this textbook. Unlike Todd and Curti, Bailey and Kennedy didn’t justify the behavior of the white rioters but by suggesting that these were somehow clashes between Blacks and whites, it takes the onus off white mobs killing African Americans and driving them out of housing and jobs.

Even Howard Zinn’s widely used A People’s History of the United States, first published in 1980 by Harper Collins and reissued most recently in 2015 by Harper Perennial, the most progressive history of the United States that I used as a reference, falls short. Zinn included the post-war strike wave but not the race riots in 1919 or the destruction of the Black community of Tulsa in 1921.

I read From Slavery to Freedom, A History of Negro Americans, 3rd edition by John Hope Franklin and Alfred A. Moss, Jr. (1969, Vintage) as an undergraduate at CCNY in a class on American Nego History during the 1968-1969 school year. Unfortunately, it did not have much influence on the American history curriculum.

In the 7th edition (published in 1994 by Knopf), Franklin and Moss have a chapter “Democracy Escapes” about conditions faced by African Americans in the United States in the post-World War 1 era after approximately 380,000 African Americans served in the army and about 200,000 were stationed in the European theater (346-360; Goldenberg, 2022). Despite welcoming parades in major American cities, The Crisis reported “This country of ours, despite all its better souls have done and dreamed, is yet a shameful land. It lynches . . . It disenfranchises its own citizens . . . It encourages ignorance . . .It steals from us . . . It insults us . . . We return. We return from fighting. We return fighting. Make way for Democracy! We saved it in France, and by the Great Jehovah, we will save it in the U.S.A., or know the reason why” (347).

Between June and December 1919, Red Summer, Franklin and Moss estimate there were twenty-five anti-Black race riots in American cities (349). The most serious riot was in Chicago where there were thirty-eight fatalities, over 500 reported injuries, and 1,000 families left homeless (350-351).  The book also briefly describes a “race war” in Tulsa, Oklahoma in June 1921 where nine whites and 21 blacks were killed.

On Long Island, New York, the most widely used United States history textbook is Holt McDougal’s The Americans by Gerald Danzer, Jorge Kor de Alva, Larry Krieger, Louis Wilson, and Nancy Woloch. The 2012 edition has two references to the post-World War I racial climate. A “Historical Spotlight” box in a chapter on “The First World War” explains that “Racial prejudice against African Americans in the North sometimes took violent forms. However, the 1917 East St. Louis riot seems to be excused because “White workers were furious over the hiring of African Americans as strikebreakers at a munitions plant.” The 1919 Chicago riot is also blamed on African Americans who “retaliated” when a Black teenager was stoned to death by “white bathers” after he swam into “water off a ‘white beach’” (600). A later chapter on the Harlem Renaissance mentions that “Northern cities in general had not welcomed the massive influx of African Americans. Tensions had escalated in the years prior to 1920, culminating in the summer of 1919, in approximately 25 urban race riots” (659). This section does not explain who was rioting and who was being attacked.

The 12th edition of The American Pageant (2002), widely used in Advanced Placement classes, added Lisabeth Cohen as a co-author. A section on “Workers in Wartime” included the “sudden appearance” of African Americans in “previously all-white areas sometimes sparked interracial violence,” equally blamed on Blacks and whites (711). A photograph of a victim of the 1919 Chicago race riot lying on the ground face down includes the caption “The policeman arrived too late to spare this victim from being pelted by stones from an angry mob” (711). From the picture, it is difficult to tell that the victim was African American and he is not identified as such in the caption, although the police standing above him are clearly white. Members of the mob and its victims are not identified, and the caption inaccurately suggests that white police were trying to protect the Black community. The 16th edition, published in 2015, notes in Chapter 32 “American Life in the Roaring Twenties, 1919-1929” that a “ new racial pride also blossomed in the northern black communities that burgeoned during and after the war,” but contained no mention of the race riots in 1919 or 1921 (749) and the chapter on “The Politics of Boom and Bust, 1920-1932” dropped the reference to “vicious race riots” in the 1983 edition.

The fourth edition of Making America (Houghton Mifflin, 2006) by Carol Berkin, Christopher Miller, Robert Cherny, and James Gormly references the East St. Louis and Tulsa riots in the index and race riots are paired with lynchings as examples of the conditions faced by returning Black veteran after World War 1. Unlike other texts, this book clearly identifies that “white mobs” were attacking African Americans in East St. Louis, Washington DC, Chicago, Omaha, Tulsa, and Detroit (694, 706, 732). It is also one of the few textbooks to list racism in the index.

America’s History 9th edition for the AP Course by James Henretta, Rebecca Edward, Eric Hunderaker and Robert Self, published by Bedford, Freeman & Worth in 2018, includes Chapter 21, “Unsettled Prosperity: From War to Depression, 1919-1932.” This chapter has a section titled “Racial Backlash.” White attacks on Black workers and communities are presented as a response to the Great Migration during World War I and competition for jobs and housing. The section references 1917 riots in East St. Louis, Illinois where white mobs “burned more than 300 black homes and murdered between 50 and 150 black men, women and children”; the Chicago race riot of 1919; the Rosewood, Florida Massacre; and the “horrific incident” in Tulsa. The Tulsa “incident” did receive significant coverage, about half of a paragraph. “Sensational, false reports of an alleged rape helped incite white mobs who resented growing black prosperity. Anger focused on the 8,000 residents of Tulsa’s prosperous Greenwood district, locally known as ‘the black Wall Street.’ The mobs – helped by National Guardsmen, who arrested African Americans who resisted – burned thirty-five blocks of Greenwood and killed several dozen people. The city’s leading paper acknowledged that ‘semi-organized bands of white men systematically applied the torch, while others shot on site men of color.’ It took a decade for black residents to rebuild Greenwood” (653-654).

The best coverage of the 1917-1921 anti-Black race riots is probably Eric Foner’s AP text Give Me Liberty (6th edition, Norton). Chapter 19 “Safe for Democracy: The United States and World War I,” has a section on “Racial Violence, North and South.” It reports on the East St. Louis and Chicago attacks by white mobs on Black workers and communities, lynchings in the South targeting returning Black war veterans, a bloody attack on striking Black sharecroppers in Arkansas, and Tulsa. Foner describes Tulsa as “The worst race riot in American history . . . when more than 300 blacks were killed and over 10,000 left homeless after a white mob, including police and National Guardsmen, burned an all-black section of the city to the ground. The Tulsa riot erupted after s group of black veterans tried to prevent the lynching of a youth who had accidently tripped and fallen on a white female elevator operator, causing rumors of rape to sweep the city” (766).

Over one hundred years after the Tulsa Massacre, the United States needs to stop pretending that racism ended with the American Civil War and take steps to address the lingering impact of slavery and systemic racism on American society. An important step would be to ensure that high school students learn about events from the past that continue to shape the present.

Civics – Era 11 The Great Depression and World War II (1929-1945)

New Jersey Council for the Social Studies

www.njcss.org

Engaging High School Students in Global Civic Education Lessons in U.S. History

The relationship between the individual and the state is present in every country, society, and civilization. Relevant questions about individual liberty, civic engagement, government authority, equality and justice, and protection are important for every demographic group in the population.  In your teaching of World History, consider the examples and questions provided below that should be familiar to students in the history of the United States with application to the experiences of others around the world.

These civic activities are designed to present civics in a global context as civic education happens in every country.  The design is flexible regarding using one of the activities, allowing students to explore multiple activities in groups, and as a lesson for a substitute teacher. The lessons are free, although a donation to the New Jersey Council for the Social Studies is greatly appreciated. www.njcss.org

Era 11 The Great Depression and World War II (1929–1945)

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The beginning of the 20th century marks the foundation of the transformation of the United States into a world power by the middle of the century. In this era industrialization, urbanization, and rapid immigration changed America from an agrarian to an urban society as people lived and worked in cities. The development of the new technologies of electricity, transportation, and communication challenged our long-held traditional policies of limited government, neutrality, and laissez-faire capitalism. The lesson of the Great Depression was that capitalism and free markets did not enable everyone to attain the American Dream. As a result, Americans looked to their government for help with the problems of unemployment, poverty, old age. Housing, and the supply of food.

Activity #1: The New Deal vs. a Five-Year Plan?

During the Great Depression, the unemployment rate was 24.9% in the United States (about 13 million people). Without income, there was very limited private consumption. President Roosevelt identified the South as the number one “problem region” of the U.S. for poverty and economic distress. In 1933, President Roosevelt signed the Tennessee Valley Authority Act, a federally funded program to protect  the environment from floods, encourage economic development, and produce electric power.

In 1934, Shareholders of the Alabama Power Company sued to prevent the TVA from acquiring over half of the company’s property and equipment. The sale would allow the government agency to allocate electric power to consumers. The shareholders argued that Congress exceeded its authority.

The U.S. Supreme Court in Ashwander v. Tennessee Valley Authority, held that Congress did not abuse its power. Justice Hughes argued that the Wilson Dam, the location where the TVA was in the business of generating electricity, had been built originally in the interest of national defense because it produced materials involved in the production of munitions. The government could sell excess electricity to consumers without violating the Constitution. The majority concluded that Congress had the authority to construct the Wilson Dam. The majority also found that the disposal of the electric energy generated was lawful. 

This Supreme Court decision is also known for the reasoning of Justice Louis Brandeis regarding conflicts when one branch exceeds its power and infringes on another branch. Justice Brandeis adopted the criteria which has become known as the ‘avoidance doctrine.’ “One branch of the government cannot encroach upon the domain of another, without danger. The safety of our institutions depends in no small degree on a strict observance of this salutary rule.”

The legacy of the Tennessee Valley Authority brought electricity to the southeastern United States increasing the productivity of farming and transforming this region from poverty to sustainable economic development. Before the Tennessee Valley Authority, electric power was generated by private companies. (e.g. Westinghouse, Edison Electric Illuminating Company, Public Service Corporation, etc.) Private companies are concerned with making a profit instead of investing in public areas such as street lights or rural areas. The first buildings to have electricity around 1880 were often hotels and commercial buildings. Wabash, IN, Appleton, WI, Cleveland, OH, and lower Manhattan were some of the first towns and cities to have electric power. Some members in Congress, namely Senator George Norris, favored public utility companies as the most efficient way to bring this new invention to everyone in the United States.

The Soviet Union’s Five-Year Plan: The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Station in Ukraine

Since the Russian Revolution of 1917, Lenin prioritized the electrification of the Soviet Union as essential for economic and industrial development.  Each of the 12 Five Year Plans included the expansion of power through the construction of dams, fossil fuels, natural gas, and since 1975, nuclear energy. The Soviet state planning committee, Gosplan, developed these plans with clearly stated production goals.

One of the problems with the energy plan of the Soviet Union is the transmission of electricity from the generating plant to other regions of the country. Russia depends on a unified power system and the complexity of its geography and use of different energy sources (fossil fuels, hydropower, natural gas, and nuclear) makes it difficult to transfer power from one source to another efficiently.  The heaviest demand for electricity is in the western or European side of the country.  However, as electricity became accessible to rural areas, agricultural production became dependent on electricity. The largest nuclear power plant in Europe is on the Dnieper River in Ukraine. It was constructed in 1985.

The Soviet Union could benefit from the computer software used in the United States, but the Five-Year Plan model is dependent on Soviet Union computers and boilers. Some of the Five-Year Plans were completed ahead of schedule, some did not meet their goals, and they also included social changes such as closing houses of worship, providing child care, and using large collective farms. The goals of most of the plans were to transform the Soviet Union into a major industrial and economic power.

The Debate Between Private and Public Electric Companies

Russia’s 12 5 year plans

The Soviet Electric Power Industry

Questions:

  1. How is a market economy different from a command economy? What are the advantages and disadvantages of both models?
  2. Why did the United States and Soviet Union experience challenges or problems with electrifying their countries?
  3. Is a monopoly or market competition the most efficient economic model for providing utilities to the people in a country? (water, electric, phone, education, etc.)
  4. Is a market or command economy the most efficient model to address the expected problems from climate change in the next 25 years?
  5. Which economic model (market, command, or mixed) is the most efficient one to increase worker productivity?

Activity #2: Two Perspectives on World War II: DR’s Four Freedoms Speech and Hirohito’s Decree

On January 6, 1940, about three months after Hitler’s attack on Poland, President Franklin Roosevelt gave his Four Freedoms speech as part of his State of the Union address. This was during a time when many people in America wanted to remain neutral and isolated from the European conflict which expanded in September 1939 with Germany’s blitzkrieg attack and occupation of independent Poland.

1940 was also a presidential election year. In the mid-term election of 1938, the Republican Party became the majority in the House and Senate.  The Republican Party had several contenders for the nomination, notably Governor Thomas Dewey (NY) Senator Robert Taft (OH), and Wendell Wilkie, a businessman from Kansas. When the Republican Party convention was held in June in Philadelphia, Wendell Wilkie’s popularity had increased significantly, while the popularity of Thomas Dewey and Robert Taft was declining. 

Excerpt from the Four Freedoms Speech

“In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms.

The first is freedom of speech and expression–everywhere in the world.

The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way–everywhere in the world.

The third is freedom from want–which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants-everywhere in the world.

The fourth is freedom from fear–which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor–anywhere in the world.

That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation. That kind of world is the very antithesis of the so-called new order of tyranny which the dictators seek to create with the crash of a bomb.

To that new order we oppose the greater conception–the moral order. A good society is able to face schemes of world domination and foreign revolutions alike without fear.

Since the beginning of our American history, we have been engaged in change — in a perpetual peaceful revolution — a revolution which goes on steadily, quietly adjusting itself to changing conditions–without the concentration camp or the quick-lime in the ditch. The world order which we seek is the cooperation of free countries, working together in a friendly, civilized society.

This nation has placed its destiny in the hands and heads and hearts of its millions of free men and women; and its faith in freedom under the guidance of God. Freedom means the supremacy of human rights everywhere. Our support goes to those who struggle to gain those rights or keep them. Our strength is our unity of purpose. To that high concept there can be no end save victory.”

Historical perspectives were important in 1941, and they are important today. The United States, including President Roosevelt, presented a perspective of Japanese superiority and a destiny to rule the world. He also called America’s citizens to accept the importance of a new moral order that included the religious concept of faith in freedom under the guidance of God. This perspective of American superiority is built on a commitment to an idea and an ideal.

American vs. Japanese Civilian Perspectives

A Life Magazine article about Emperor Hirohito in 1937 stated “To Japanese he is, in all seriousness, a divine descendent of the Sun goddess, the incarnate head of the Japanese divinity idea that makes the conquest of Asia a holy destiny for the Japanese race.” For ordinary Americans, the concept of kami in Japanese culture was not comprehendible. Instead of understanding a perspective of divinity as present everywhere, they accepted Hirohito as a son of a god or goddess or someone connected with divinity.

After the bombing at Pearl Harbor tensions between the United States and Japan escalated. Through the lens of war, the Japanese emperor’s god-like status became a more serious issue because they perceived Japan’s war objectives connected with their religious beliefs.  A 1945 United States News story explains, “Shintoism has no religious content and has ethical content to the extent that it is designed to support the idea of the divine origin of the Emperor.”  A 1945 article in Life Magazine stated, “The Emperor of Japan is neither a man nor a ruler. Nor is he simply a god living in Tokyo. He is a spiritual institution in which center the energy, the loyalty and even the morality of the Japanese.” He is supreme in all temporal matters of state as well as in all spiritual matters, and he is the foundation of Japanese social and civil morality.

American and Japanese civilians had very opposite reactions following the events of December 7, 1941. For Americans, Pearl Harbor represented “A Day Which Will Live in Infamy.” For citizens of Japan, Pearl Harbor represented the success of a justified military retaliation. The American and Japanese governments both utilized nationalism to their advantage, and implemented various forms of propaganda as tools for shaping their civilians’ perspectives.  

Excerpt from Japan’s Announcement Following the Attack on Pearl Harbor

     “What an uproar! Japan’s Imperial Forces got things off to a quick start with one splendid strike then another in historic surprise attacks on Pearl Harbor, where the bravado of the US Asia fleet met with sudden defeat, and off the Malaya Coast, where the main forces of the British Asia fleet were utterly annihilated. Word has it that Roosevelt and Churchill were shaken up and went pale upon hearing of the defeats. In a third strike, Hong Kong Island, England’s strategic base for its 100-year exploitation of East Asia, fell into ruin in only a matter of ten days. During this time, Churchill was sent reeling, cutting off contact with others and showing up in Washington.

     What these two headstrong countries are striving for will only lead them on a downhill path to military defeat. Our barbaric enemies are already cowering in fear in the Pacific, and the fall of Manila shall mark the day of the Philippines’ subjugation and reversion back to Greater East Asia. The enemy power of Singapore, which was—alas—boasting of its impenetrable stronghold before the Imperial Forces penetrated the jungle area of the Malay Peninsula and advanced southward like a raging tide, shall also vanish into nothingness in the midst of this glorious chapter in history.

     The military gains of the glorious Imperial Forces are truly great, and the army, navy, and air force should be given our heartfelt gratitude. We should also honor our courageous men who are ready to lay down their lives when charging enemy lines, as well as those who went out to conquer but never returned.”

Emperor Hirohito’s Decree

On January 1, 1946, four months after the surrender on September 2, 1945, Emperor Hirohito made the following statement in Japan’s newspapers.

“I stand by my people. I am ever ready to share in their joys and sorrows. The ties between me and my people have always been formed by mutual trust and affection. They do not depend upon mere legends or myths. Nor are they predicated on the false conception that the Emperor is divine, and that the Japanese are superior to other races and destined to rule the world.

FDR Four Freedoms Speech

FDR Annual Message to Congress, January 6, 1940

Japanese vs. American Perspectives on Pearl Harbor

Japan’s Announcement Following Pearl Harbor, December 8, 1941

President Roosevelt’s Speech Following Pearl Harbor (video:4:48)

Eleanor Roosevelt’s Radio Address on the Evening of Pearl Harbor (transcript)

Eleanor Roosevelt’s Radio Address on the Evening of Pearl Harbor (audio, 2:57)

Questions:

  1. How was the rise of dictators after World War 1 an existential threat? How did ordinary American citizens understand the conflict in Europe and Asia before and after the attack on Poland and the attack on Pearl Harbor?
  2. If you were the President of the United States in 1940, would you deliver the Four Freedoms speech or one that is similar in content and context?
  3. Do you accept President Roosevelt’s statement following Pearl Harbor that before the attack the United States was at peace with Japan? (see video clip above)
  4. Are elected leaders elevated by people and the press or are they criticized to the extent that their decisions and motives are questioned?
  5. Which government delivered the best message to its citizens based on factual evidence and an understanding of the importance of the attack on Pearl Harbor?

Activity #3: Japanese Internment Camps and Soviet Union Deportation Camps

Japanese Internment Camps

Two months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, February 19, 1942, President Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 to relocate approximately 117,000 Japanese Americans living on the west coast.  At first, the order was voluntary and Japanese Americans had time to sell their property and comply in an orderly manner.

Unfortunately, many did not comply voluntarily, and the relocation became mandatory. Thousands of people lost their homes and businesses due to “failure to pay taxes.” The relocation of Japanese Americans in the United States for safety and security reasons was controversial during World War II and for the decades that followed.  The internment camps provided educational and recreational activities, adequate heat, and a process to hear complaints and address concerns.

There were 12 camps located all over the United States, with the Seabrook Farms camp in New Jersey.

President Truman rescinded the Executive Order on June 25, 1946 allowing the Japanese Americans to return to their homes. They were in relocation camps for more than four years. When they returned home, most found their belongings stolen and their homes and property sold. They also faced prejudice and discrimination for years, even though Japanese Americans were combat soldiers during the war. 

In 1988, President Ronald Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act. The remaining survivors of the relocation camps were sent formal letters of apology and were awarded $20,000 in restitutions from the United States government.

Soviet Union Deportation Camps During World War II

On February 23, 1944, the Chechens were exiled from their ancestral lands and deported to Siberia and the northern regions of Kazakhstan. The entirety of the Chechen nation was accused of collaborating with the Fascists, even though there is no evidence to support this. The German advance into the Soviet Union never came close to Chechnya. The Chechen deportation of almost 400,000 men, women, and children is the largest Soviet deportation and occurred in a matter of days. Many Chechens had in fact fought on the front lines of the Soviet war against the German aggressor.

On September 1, 1941 the mass evacuation was announced for the approximately 440,000 Volga Germans. Ten days later they began their forced deportation to Kazakhstan and Siberia. Many were forced to work in ‘labor camps’  such as Kolyma. The Volga Germans were then stripped of their citizenship and did not regain their civil rights until after Stalin’s death. Most estimates indicate that close to 40 percent of the affected population perished.

In 1944, Joseph Stalin ordered the deportation of the entire Crimean Tatar community (roughly 200,000), falsely accusing them of collaborating with the Nazis. Reports suggest that nearly half of the deported died during the ordeal. Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania, and Canada have all formally recognized Stalin’s brutal deportation as a crime of genocide. During this same period, the Soviet Union adopted a policy of “Russification” for the peninsula. Crimea was “Russified” and any study of the Tatar’s native language was banned, ancient Tatar names were erased, Tatar books were burned, and their mosques were destroyed. Nikita Khrushchev transferred Crimea from Soviet Russia to Soviet Ukraine.

Behind Barbed Wire: Japanese American Camps

Japanese American Internment Camps

Soviet Union Deportation of Volga Germans

Soviet Union Deportation of Chechnyas

Soviet Union Deportation of Crimean Tatars

Questions:

  1. Is it possible for a government to correct something it did that was morally or legally wrong?
  2. Do governments need to justify the actions they take during a time of war or a national crisis?
  3. Are there significant differences in the actions of the United States and the Soviet Union in the relocation or deportation of innocent people, many who were citizens?
  4. Do ordinary people have any rights during a war or crisis (i.e. Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan, Congo, Rwanda, etc.)?
  5. How and who determines if and when a government exceeds its authority?

Activity #4: Weapons of Mass Destruction

In World War II, the Japanese were fighting for the Emperor who convinced them that it was better to die than surrender. Women and children had been taught how to kill with basic weapons. kamikaze pilots crashed their planes into American ships. A land invasion would be costly with estimates of more than one million American lives lost.

After a successful test of a nuclear bomb at Los Alamos, New Mexico on July 16, 1945, the United States, China, and the United Kingdom issued the Potsdam Declaration on July 26 demanding the unconditional surrender of the Japanese government, warning of “prompt and utter destruction.” On the morning of August 6, 1945, the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. The result was approximately 80,000 deaths in just the first few minutes. Thousands died later from radiation sickness. On August 9, 1945, a second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. The result was 39,000 men, women and children were killed and 25,000 more were injured. Both cities were leveled and Japan surrendered to the United States.

After the news of the atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 and on Nagasaki on August 9, 1945, Lieutenant General Leslie R Groves, director of the `Manhattan Project’ that had developed the atomic bomb, commented:

“The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki ended World War II. There can be no doubt of that. While they brought death and destruction on a horrifying scale, they averted even greater losses – American, English, and Japanese”.

This justification that the use of the bomb saved lives, even though it killed innocent civilians, has haunted the world into our present time.  It was a view that generated controversy then and after as to the justification or otherwise of the use of such weapons on largely defenseless civilian targets, at such Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) that has haunted the world into our present times.

Following World War 2, there was an arms race between the Soviet Union and the United States. Although there were threats of war and conflicts in Korea, Southeast Asia, the Congo and other places, this period was called the Cold War. Other countries also developed nuclear weapons leading to concerns of a global conflict.

The world came close to a nuclear attack during the Cuban Missile Crisis. In 1962, nuclear weapons could be delivered by airplanes, missiles, and submarines. The Soviet Union placed nuclear warheads in Cuba and the United States had some in Turkey. These missiles could attack cities in both countries within a range of 1,200 miles. Fortunately, the Soviet Union began to withdraw its ships and missiles from Cuba and an agreement was made.

In the 1960s, the military strategy of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) was debated, In this strategy, two opposing forces, the Soviet Union and the United States, had enough nuclear weapons to completely destroy each other. This deterrence theory assumed that neither side would initiate a nuclear attack because the resulting retaliation would lead to their own destruction.  The concept, first discussed in the 1960s during the Cold War, is based on the idea that the devastating consequences of nuclear war would outweigh any potential gains for either side. 

As a result, the United Nations initiated the process to limit the production of nuclear testing and weapons.  Since the first test ban treaty, several agreements have been ratified to control the proliferation of nuclear and chemical weapons. The threat from atomic, hydrogen, neutron, and cobalt nuclear weapons is a concern to every person and every country because of the fallout from dangerous levels of radiation. There are still detectable effects of radiation in our atmosphere today from the 1945 explosion. The effects of radiation from a thermonuclear weapon (Hydrogen bomb) will likely last for hundreds of years and affect every living organism and human.

Following the Attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, the world became concerned about a terrorist group having access to a smaller nuclear weapon, a dirty bomb, that might be detonated in an urban area. The effects of a dirty bomb would likely be limited to the immediate area of the explosion but the damage to property and the cleanup of radioactive elements would be significant and costly.

Nuclear Arms Race and Treaties: 1949-2021 (Council on Foreign Relations)

Timeline of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (Arms Control Association)

Devastating Effects of Nuclear Weapons

Questions:

  1. Why did an arms race between the USA and the USSR begin after 1945?
  2. How sane was the policy of MAD?
  3. What factors sustained the arms race for so long?
  4. Is a limited nuclear war a plausible scenario or would it quickly lead to an all-out war?
  5. What would life on Earth be like after a nuclear war? What geographic regions might have a chance of survival?
  6. Should the civil defense from a nuclear war or dirty bomb explosion be best coordinated by local, state, or the federal government in the United States?
  7. How would the governments of Europe or the Middle East, where there are many countries within a small geographic area respond to a nuclear war or explosion from a bomb or nuclear power plant?
  8. What is the most likely scenario for a nuclear explosion in the 21st century?